THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


7  J 


Zbc  jevolutton  of  riDan* 


HENRY     DRUMMOND 


Z\)c  jevolution  of  flDan 

BEING  THE 

LOWELL  LECTURES 

DEI^rVERED  AT  BOSTON,   MASS.,  APRIL,    1S93,   BY 

professor  Ibcnrg  DrummonO 


EDITED   BY 

WILLIAM  TEMPLETON. 


PHILADELPHIA 
HENRY    ALT EMUS 

1893 


Copyrighted,  1893,  by 
HENRY  ALTEMUS. 


ALTEMUS     BOOKEINDERY, 
PHILADELPHIA. 


m3 


IH70M 


Contents, 

PAGE 

The  Evolution  of  Man    -       -       -       -  29 
The  Arrest  of  the  Animal  Body  of 

Man 109 

The  Residuum  of  the  Animal  in  Man  135 

The  Struggle  for  Life       -       -        -  169 

The  Evolution  of  ]\Iind  -       -       -       -  189 

The  Evolution  of  Language      -       -  213 

The  Evolution  of  Sex     -       •       -       -  235 

The  Evolution  of  a  Mother      -       -  247 

.(II) 


lIntrot)uction. 


1^ntro^uctton. 


Prof.  Drummond  never  says  any- 
thing that  is  not  both  interesting  and 
valuable.  He  is  the  foremost  living 
member  of  that  group  of  writers  which 
may  be  generally  called  the  reconcilers 
of  religion  and  science.  Since  Butler, 
the  author  of  the  '  'Analogy  of  Religion 
and     Science,"    there    is    no    clerical 

thinker  who  has  produced  so  profound 

(15) 


16  5ntroDuct{on. 

an  impression  upon  the  class  of  doubters 
who  were  willing  and  eager  to  be  con- 
vinced. 

The  fight,  or  the  apparent  fight,  be- 
tween Religion  and  Science  is  an  old 
one.  Science  is  continually  making 
discoveries  which  seem  to  oppose  the 
current  dogmas  of  faith.  Science,  for 
example,  discovers  that  the  earth  is  a 
globe  and  revolves  around  the  sun. 
Straightway  there  is  a  hubbub  amongst 
the  dogmatists.  Text  after  text  is 
quoted  from  the  Bible  to  prove  that 
Science    must    be   wrong.     Then    the 


Jntro&uctfon.  17 

Reconciler  steps  in  to  show  that  Scrip- 
ture, properly  interpreted,  does  not 
mean  what  the  dogmatists  asserted. 
Again,  Science  discovers  that  the  Earth 
has  existed  for  millions  of  years.  An- 
other hubbub  among  the  dogmatists  ! 
According  to  their  interpretation  of 
Biblical  chronology  the  earth  has  ex- 
isted for  just  about  six  thousand  years. 
Then  the  Reconciler,  by  reference  to 
the  Sanscrit  original,  shows  that  the 
six  days  of  creation  undoubtedly  mean 
six  geological  periods  of  indefinite 
length,  and  that  there  is  no  real  autago- 


18  3ntro&uctton. 

nism  iu  the  assertion  made  by  Science. 
And  so  the  conflict  goes  on  with  the 
progress  of  the  views  and  the  increase 
in  man's  knowledge. 

When  the  theory  of  evolution — the 
so-called  Darwinian  theory  which  has 
been  endorsed  and  elaborated  by  Hux- 
ley and  Herbert  Spencer — when  this 
theory  was  first  promulgated  there  was 
dismay  and  anger  and  disgust  in  the 
religious  camp.  That  man  should  -be 
descended  in  a  straight,  orderly  and  un- 
broken line  from  the  animal,  that  his 
creation  was  not  a  special   fiat  of  the 


5ntro&uctlon.  19 

Almighty,  but  that  he  and  the  entire 
universe  are  the  result  of  a  gradual  pro- 
cess of  evolution  resulting  from  certain 
laws  inherent  in  matter  itself — these 
new  ideas  struck  the  dogmatists  as 
hideous  and  appalling  heresies.  To 
allow  them  would  be  to  disallow  the 
Bible,  religion  and  God. 

Yet  slowly  but  surely  the  reconcilia- 
tion between  religion  and  these  strange, 
new  theories  has  been  going  on.  Not 
that  all  theologians  are  agreed  on  what 
to  accept  or  what  to  reject.  But  all 
theologians  do  now  agree  that  even  that 


20  ^ntroDuction. 

portion  of  the  doctrine  which  they  re- 
ject is  entitled  to  respect. 

Professor  Drummond  is  no  ordinary- 
theologian.  He  is  ahead  of  all  his  fel- 
lows. He  boldly  accepts  the  doctrine 
of  evolution.  He  accepts  it  in  its  en- 
tirety. He  goes  even  further.  He  at- 
tempts to  show  how  the  same  laws 
which  science  has  discovered  in  the 
phenomena  of  nature  continue  and  can 
be  traced  in  the  phenomena  of  the 
spiritual,  that  evolution  is  not  only  true 
of  the  body,  but  also  of  the  soul. 

Of  course  his  attitude  has  dismaved 


5ntro0uction.  21 

many  of  his  more  conservative  brethren. 
Evangelicals  did  not  at  once  know  how 
to  take  him.  They  conld  not  be  quite 
sure  whether  he  was  for  or  against  them. 
Indeed  the  narrower  portion  of  them  still 
look  upon  him  as  a  decidedly  dangerous 
heretic.  But  a  large  proportion  of 
thoughtful,  conscientious  and  earnest 
Christians,  wavering  in  their  faith  be- 
cause of  the  new  light  which  science 
had  thrown  upon  religion,  have  given 
an  eager  welcome  to  his  teachings  and 
have  found  in  them  the  solution  of  their 
doubts. 


22  ^ntrcDuctfon. 

Boru  in  1852,  Professor  Druinmond  is 
a  comparatively  young  man  ;  he  is  still  in 
the  dawn  of  his  powers.  It  is  signifi- 
cant of  his  modesty  that  his  published 
books  represent  only  the  merest  fraction 
of  his  intellectual  life-work.  As  a  writer 
his  style  is  vigorous  and  simple.  He 
expresses  himself  with  a  robust  sin- 
cerity that  convinces  as  well  as 
thrills. 

This  little  book  is  made  up  from  the 
contemporary  reports  of  the  lectures  re- 
cently delivered  by  Professor  Drum- 
mond  in  the  Boston  Institute.     These 


Jntro&uctton.  23 

reports  have  been  carefully  collated  and 
edited  and  are  presented  to  the  reader 
with  the  certainty  that  they  will  prove 
of  interest  and  value. 


Zbc  lEvolution  of  nDan, 


^bc  lEvolution  of  fIDan. 

In  these  lectures  I  propose  to  intro- 
duce you  to  a  few  of  the  more  recent 
facts  bearing  upon  the  Ascent  of  Man.  I 
have  chosen  the  subject  not  only  because 
Evolution  is  the  great  word  of  this 
closing  century,  nor  because  the  Evolu- 
tion of  Man  is  the  noblest  theme  of 
which  science  can  ever  speak,  but 
because,  singular  though  the  omission 

might  seem,   no  connected  account  of 

(ay) 


30  Zbc  Evolution  of  ^an. 

this   great  drama  exists  at   the  present 
time. 

In  the  monographs  of  Minot  and  His, 
the  Embryology  of  Man  has  received  a 
just  expression  ;  Darwin  and  Haeckel 
have  traced  the  origin  of  the  Animal- 
Body  ;  the  researches  of  Romanes  mark 
a  beginnino'  with  the  Evolution  of 
Mind  ;  Herbert  Spencer  has  elaborated 
theories  of  the  development  of  Morals  ; 
Edward  Caird  of  the  Evolution  of 
Religion.  Supplementing  the  contri- 
butions of  these  authorities,  some  veri- 
fying, some  criticising,  some  combating, 
some  rebutting,  are  a  multitude  of  others 
who   have   devoted   their   lives   to    the 


Zbc  JEwlutlon  of  /llban.  31 

same  ricli  problems.  But  these  re- 
searclies,  preliminary  reconnaisances 
though  they  be,  are  worthy  of  being 
looked  upon  as  a  whole.  No  one  can 
say  that  this  multitude  of  observers  are 
not  in  earnest,  nor  their  work  honest, 
nor  their  methods  competent  to  the 
last  powers  of  science.  What  they  see 
in  the  unexplored  land  in  which  they 
travel  belongs  to  the  world.  Like  the 
work  of  all  pioneers,  it  is  at  least  a  be- 
ginning, and  must  be  treated  with 
respect.  By  just  such  methods,  and  by 
just  such  men,  the  map  of  the  world  of 
thought  is  filled  in — here  from  the 
tracing  up  of  some   great   river,  there 


33  XLbe  Evolutfon  of  /nban. 

from  a  bearing  taken  roughly  in  a 
darkened  sky,  yonder  from  a  sudden 
glint  of  the  sun,  caught  by  a  quick  eye 
on  a  far-off  mountain  peak,  here  by  a 
swift  induction  of  an  adventurous  mind 
from  a  momentary  glimpse  of  a  natural 
law.  In  a  century  which  has  added  to 
the  sum  of  human  learning  more  than 
all  the  centuries  that  have  gone  before, 
it  is  not  to  be  conceived  that  on  the 
highest  themes  of  all  some  further  reve- 
lation should  not  be  vouchsafed  to  man. 
Now  that  the  first  rash  rush  of  the 
evolutionary  invasion  is  past,  and  the 
sins  of  its  youth  atoned  for  by  sober 
concession.  Evolution  is  seen  to  be  little 


ttbe  JEvolutlon  of  /Ran.  33 

more  than  the  story  of  creation  as  told 
by  those  who  know  it  best.  "  Evolu- 
tion," says  Mr.  Huxley,  "or  develop- 
ment, is  at  present  employed  in  biology 
as  a  general  name  for  the  history  of  the 
steps  by  which  any  living  being  has 
acquired  the  morphological  and  the 
physiological  characters  which  distin- 
guish it."  Though  applied  specifically 
to  plants  and  animals,  this  definition 
expresses  the  chief  sense  in  which  Evolu- 
tion is  to  be  used  scientifically  at  present. 
After  all  the  ink  spilt.  Evolution  is 
simply  "history,"  a  "  history  of  steps," 
a  "general  name"  for  the  history  of 
the  steps  by  which  the  world  has  come 


34  Zbe  JEvolutlon  ot  /iBan, 

to  be  what  it  is.  According  to  this 
definition,  the  story  of  Evolution  is 
narrative.  It  may  be  wrongly  told  ;  it 
may  be  colored,  exaggerated,  over-  or 
under-stated,  like  the  record  of  any 
other  set  of  facts  ;  it  may  be  told  with 
a  theological  bias,  or  with  an  anti-theo- 
logical bias ;  theories  of  the  process 
may  be  added  by  this  thinker  or  by 
that ;  but  none  of  these  are  of  the 
substance  of  the  story.  Whether  history 
is  told  by  a  Gibbon  or  a  Green  the  facts 
remain,  and  whether  Evolution  be  told 
by  a  Haeckel  or  a  Wallace,  we  accept 
the  narrative  so  far  as  it  is  a  rendering 
of  Nature,  aud  no  more. 


Zbc  Bvolution  ot  /nban.  35 

It  is  true,  before  this  story  can  be 
fully  told,  centuries  still  must  pass.  At 
present  there  is  not  a  chapter  of  the 
record  that  is  not  incomplete,  not  a  page 
that  is  wholly  finished.  The  manuscript 
is  already  worn  with  erasures,  the 
writing  is  often  blurred,  the  very  lan- 
guage is  uncouth  and  strange.  Yet  even 
now  the  outline  of  a  continued  story 
is  beginning  to  appear — a  story  whose 
chief  credentials  lie  in  the  fact  that  no 
imagination  of  man  could  have  designed 
a  spectacle  so  wonderful,  or  worked  out 
a  plot  at  once  so  intricate  and  so  tran- 
scendently  simple. 


36  Zbc  JEvolution  of  ^an. 

THE  RIGHTFUL  CLAIM   OF  SCIENCE. 

The  day  is  past  when  one  need  apolo- 
gize for  treating  Man  as  an  object  of 
scientific  research.  Hamlet's  "being 
of  large  discourse  looking  before  and 
after"  is,  withal,  a  part  of  nature,  and 
can  neither  be  made  larger  nor  smaller, 
anticipate  less  or  prophesy  less,  because 
we  investigate,  and  perhaps  discover, 
his  pedigree.  And  should  his  pedigree 
be  proved  to  be  related  in  undreamed- 
of ways  to  that  of  all  other  things  in 
nature,  "  all  other  things  "  have  that  to 
gain  by  the  alliance  which  philosophy 
and  theology  have  often  wished  to  dower 


■Rigbtful  Claim  of  Science.  37 

them  with,  but  could  never  lawfully  do. 
Every  step  in  the  proof  of  the  oneness 
in  an  evolutionary  process  of  this  divine 
humanity  of  ours  with  all  lower  things 
in  nature  is  a  step  in  the  proof  of  the 
divinity  of  all  lower  things. 

If  Evolution  can  be  proved  to  include 
Man,  from  that  moment  the  whole  course 
of  Evolution  and  the  whole  scheme  of  na- 
ture assume  a  new  significance.  The  be- 
ginning must  then  be  interpreted  from 
the  end,  not  the  end  from  the  beginning. 
All  that  is  found  in  the  product  must  be 
put  into  the  process.  Few  things  are 
more  needed  at  the  present  hour  than  a 


88  Zbe  Evolution  of  /Bban. 

readjustment  of  the  accents  in   telling 
the  story  of  Evolution. 

Largely  because  the  theory  of  develop- 
ment became  known  to  the  popular 
mind  through  the  limited  form  of 
Darwinism,  the  whole  subject  began 
out  of  focus,  was  first  seen  by  the  world 
out  of  focus,  and  has  remained  out  of 
focus  to  the  present  day.  Darwinism 
on  its  own  levels,  modified,  doubtless, 
by  time,  may  prove  to  be  true  ;  its  princi- 
ples, when  extended  to  other  levels  and 
balanced  with  whatever  other  principles 
are  found  there,  may  also  prove  to  be 
true  ;  but  when  they  are  allowed  to 
enter  those  other   regions   alone^    with 


TRfObttul  Claim  of  Science.  39 

the  emphasis  unchanged,  without  allow- 
ing for  new  factors  and  new  forces,  they 
become  false  and  pernicious.  An 
Evolution  theory  which  includes  Man 
drawn  to  scale  and  with  the  lights  and 
shadows  properly  adjusted — adjusted  to 
the  whole  truth  and  reality  of  nature — 
is  needed  as  a  standard  for  modern 
thought,  and  when  it  comes,  it  must 
make  impossible  all  those  inversions  and 
perversions  which  interpret  everything 
from  beneath.  An  engineering  workshop 
is  unintelligible  until  we  reach  the  room 
where  the  completed  engine  stands. 
Everything  culminates  in  that  final  pro- 
duct, is  contained  in  it,  is  explained  by  it. 


40  Zbe  Evolution  of  /Ran. 

The  Evolution  of  Man  also  is  the 
complement  and  corrective  of  all  other 
forms  of  Evolution.  From  this  height 
only  is  there  a  full  view,  a  true  perspec- 
tive, a  consistent  world.  The  whole 
mistake  of  naturalism  has  been  to  in- 
terpret nature  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  atom — to  study  the  machinery  which 
drives  this  great  moving  world  simply 
as  machinery,  forgetting  that  the  ship 
has  any  passengers,  or  the  passengers 
any  captain,  or  the  captain  any  course. 
It  is  as  great  a  mistake,  on  the  other 
hand,  for  the  theologian  to  separate  the 
ship  from  the  passengers  as  for  the 
naturalist  to    separate  the    passengers 


'Rfgbttul  Claim  ot  Science.  41 

from  the  ship.  It  Is  he  who  cannot 
include  Man  among  the  links  of  Evolu- 
tion who  has  greatly  to  fear  the  theory 
of  development.  In  his  jealousy  for 
that  religion  which  seems  to  him  higher 
than  science,  he  removes  at  once  the 
rational  basis  from  religion  and  the 
legitimate  crown  from  science,  for- 
getting that  in  doing  so,  with  whatever 
satisfaction  to  himself,  he  offers  to  the 
world  an  unnatural  religion  and  an 
inhuman  science.  The  cure  for  all  the 
small  mental  disorders  which  spring  up 
around  restricted  applications  of  Evolu- 
tion is  to  extend  it  fearlessly  in  all 
directions  as  far  as  the  mind  can  carry 


43  ^be  Bvolutlon  of  /Sban. 

it  and  the  facts  allow,  till  each  man, 
working  at  his  subordinate  part,  is  com- 
pelled to  own,  and  adjust  himself  to, 
the  whole. 


THE    RIGHTFUL    CLAIM   OF   THEOLOGY. 

If  the  theological  mind  be  called  upon 
to  make  this  expansion,  the  scientific 
man  also  must  be  asked  to  enlarge  his 
views  in  another  direction.  If  he  in- 
sists upon  including  Man  in  his  scheme 
of  Evolution,  he  must  see  to  it  that  he 
include  the  whole  Man.  For  him  at 
least  no  form  of  Evolution  is  scientific 


IRtabtfuI  Claim  ot  tlbcolost!.  43 
or  is  to  be  considered,  which  does  not 
include  the  whole  Man,  and  all  that  is 
in  Man  and  all  the  work  and  thought 
and  life  and  aspiration  of  Man.  The 
great  moral  facts,  the  moral  forces  so 
far  as  they  are  proved  to  exist,  the  moral 
consciousness  so  far  as  it  is  real,  must 
come  within  this  scope.  Human  History 
must  be  as  much  a  part  of  it  as  Natural 
History.  The  social  and  religious  forces 
must  no  more  be  left  outside  it  than  the 
forces  of  gravitation  or  of  life. 

The  reason  why  the  naturalist  does 
not  usually  include  these  among  the 
factors  in  Evolution  is  not  oversight,  but 
undersight.     Sometimes,  no  doubt,  he 


44  Cbe  Evolution  of  /iBan. 

may  take  at  their  word  those  who  assure 
him  that  Evolution  has  nothing  to  do 
with  those  higher  things,  but  the  main 
reason  is  simply  that  his  work  does  not 
lie  on  the  levels  where  those  forces  come 
into  play.  The  specialist  is  not  to  be 
blamed  for  this  ;  limitation  is  his 
strength.  But  when  the  specialist  pro- 
ceeds to  reconstruct  the  universe  from 
his  little  comer  of  it,  and  especially 
from  his  level  of  it,  he  not  only  injures 
science  and  philosophy,  but  he  may 
fatally  mislead  his  neighbors.  The 
man  who  is  busy  with  the  stars  will 
never  come  across  Natural  Selection, 
yet  surely  must   he  allow  for  Natural 


■Rfflbttul  Claim  of  tTbeoloflg.         45 

Selection  in  his  construction  of  the 
world  as  a  whole.  He  who  works  among 
star-fish  will  encounter  little  of  Mental 
Evolution,  yet  will  he  not  deny  that  it 
exists.  The  stars  have  voices,  but  there 
are  other  voices  ;  the  star-fishes  have 
activities,  but  there  are  other  activities. 
Man,  body,  soul,  spirit,  are  not  only  to 
be  considered,  but  are  first  to  be  consid- 
ered in  any  theory  of  the  world.  You 
cannot  describe  the  life  of  kings,  or 
arrange  their  kingdoms,  from  the  cellar 
beneath  the  palace.  *' Art,"  as  Brown- 
ing reminds  us, 

"Must  fumble  for  the  whole,  once  fixing  on  a 
part, 


46  G;be  ^Evolution  ot  /Dban. 

However  poor,  surpass  the  fragment,  and  aspire 
To  reconstruct  thereby  the  ultimate  entire." 

Or,  to  make  the  application  in  the  wise 
words  of  Bacon,  "This  I  dare  affirm  in 
knowledge  of  Nature,  that  a  little  natu- 
ral philosophy,  and  the  first  entrance 
into  it,  doth  dispose  the  opinion  to 
atheism,  but  on  the  other  side,  much 
natural  philosophy,  and  wading  deep 
into  it,  will  bring  about  men's  minds  to 
religion."     (Meditationes  Sacrae  X.) 


DOGMATISM    FORBIDDEN. 

To  give  an  account  of  Evolution,  it 


Dogmatism  3ForbiDJ>en.  47 

need  scarcely  be  remarked,  is  not  to 
account  for  it.  No  living  thinker  has 
yet  found  it  possible  to  account  for 
Evolution.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  cel- 
ebrated definition  of  Evolution  as  "a 
change  from  an  indefinite  coherent  heter- 
ogeneity to  a  definite  coherent  hetero- 
geneity through  continuous  differentia- 
tions and  integrations  " — the  formula  of 
which  the  Contemporary  Reviciv  re- 
marked that  "the  universe  may  well 
have  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief  when, 
through  the  cerebration  of  an  eminent 
thinker,  it  had  been  delivered  of  this 
account  of  itself  " — is  simply  a  summar}' 
of  results,  and  throws  no  light,  though 


48  tibe  Evolution  ot  /Ban. 

it  is  often  supposed  to  do  so,  upon  ulti- 
mate causes.  While  it  is  true,  as  Mr. 
Wallace  says  in  his  latest  work,  that 
"Descent  with  modification  is  now 
universally  accepted  as  the  order  of 
nature  in  the  organic  world,"  there  is 
everywhere  at  this  moment  the  most 
disturbing  uncertainty  as  to  how  the 
Ascent  even  of  species  has  been  brought 
about. 

The  attacks  on  the  Darwinian  theory 
from  the  outside  were  never  so  keen  as 
are  the  controversies  now  raging  in 
scientific  circles,  over  the  fundamental 
principles  of  Darwinism  itself.  On  at 
least  two  main  points — sexual  selection 


©oflmatism  jforbiOOcn.  49 

and  the  origin  of  the  higher  mental 
characteristics  of  man — Mr.  Alfred  Rus- 
sel  Wallace,  co-discoverer  with  Darwin 
of  the  principle  of  Natural  Selection 
though  he  be,  directly  antagonizes  his 
colleague.  The  powerful  attack  of 
Weismanu  on  the  Darwinian  assumption 
of  the  inheritability  of  acquired  char- 
acters has  ope^ned  one  of  the  liveliest 
controversies  of  recent  years,  and  the 
whole  field  of  science  is  hot  with  con- 
troversies and  discussions.  In  his'  'Germ- 
Plasm,"  just  published,  the  German 
naturalist  believes  himself  to  have  finally 
disposed  of  both  Darwin's  "germules" 
and    Herbert    Spencer's     "primordial 


50  a;be  ^Evolution  ot  ^an. 

units,"  while  Eimer  breaks  a  lance 
with  Weismann  in  defence  of  Darwin, 
and  Herbert  Spencer  in  the  Contempora- 
ry Review  for  March  replies  for  himself, 
assuring  us  that  "either  there  has  been 
inheritance  of  acquired  characters  or 
there  has  been  no  evolution."  It  is  the 
greatest  tribute  to  Darwinism  that  it 
should  have  survived  to  deserve  this 
era  of  criticism.  Meantime  all  prudent 
men  can  do  no  other  than  hold  their 
judgment  in  suspense  both  as  to  that 
specific  theory  of  one  department  of 
Evolution  which  is  called  Darwinism, 
and  as  to  the  factors  and  causes  of 
Evolution  itself. 


B)oflmat(am  jfocbiODen.  51 

No  one  asks  more  of  Evolution  at 
present  than  permission  to  use  it  as  a 
working  theory.  Without  some  hy- 
pothesis no  work  can  ever  be  done,  and, 
as  all  know,  many  of  the  greatest  con- 
tributions to  human  knowledge  have 
been  made  by  the  use  of  theories  either 
themselves  imperfect  or  demonstrably 
false.  This  is  the  age  of  the  evolution 
of  evolution.  All  thoughts  that  the 
evolutionist  works  with,  all  theories 
and  generalizations,  have  been  them- 
selves evolved  and  are  now  being 
evolved.  Even  were  his  theory  per- 
fected its  first  lesson  would  be  that  it 
was  itself  but  a  phase  of  the  evolution 


52  Zbc  Bvolutton  ot  jUban. 

of  further  opinion,  no  more  fixed  than 
a  species,  no  more  final  than  the  theory 
which  it  displaced.  Of  all  men  the 
Evolutionist,  by  the  very  nature  of  his 
calling,  the  mere  tools  of  his  craft,  his 
understanding  of  his  hourly  shifting 
place  in  this  always  moving  and  ever 
more  mysterious  world,  must  be  humble, 
tolerant,  and  undogmatic. 


THE  VISION  OF   EVOLUTION. 

Nevertheless  these  are  cold  words 
with  which  to  speak  of  a  Vision — for 
Evolution  is  after  all  a  Vision — which 
is  revolutionizing:  the  world  of  Nature 


IDfsion  of  Bvolution.  53 

and  of  thought,  and,  within  living 
memory,  has  opened  up  avenues  into 
the  past  and  vistas  into  the  future  such 
as  science  has  never  witnessed  before. 
While  many  of  the  details  of  the  theory 
of  Evolution  are  in  the  crucible  of  criti- 
cism, and  while  the  field  of  modern 
science  changes  with  such  rapidity  that 
in  almost  every  department  the  text- 
books of  ten  years  ago  are  obsolete  to- 
day, it  is  fair  to  add  that  no  one  of  these 
changes,  nor  all  of  them  together,  have 
touched  the  general  theory  itself  except 
to  establish  its  strength,  its  value,  and 
its  universality.    * 

Even    more    remarkable    than    the 


54  XLbc  ^Evolution  ot  ^an. 

rapidity  of  its  conquest  is  the  author- 
ity with  which  the  doctrine  of  De- 
velopment has  seemed  to  speak  to 
the  most  authoritative  minds  of  our 
time.  Of  those  who  are  in  the  front 
rank,  of  those  who  have,  by  common 
consent,  the  right  to  speak,  there  are 
scarcely  any  who  do  not  in  some  form 
employ  it  in  working  and  in  thinking. 
Authority  may  mean  little  ;  the  world 
has  often  been  mistaken  ;  but  when 
minds  so  difierent  as  those  of  Charles 
Darwin  or  of  John  Richard  Green,  of 
Herbert  Spencer  or  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing, build  half  the  labors  of  their  life 
on  this  one  law,   it   is  impossible,  es- 


Dleion  ot  JEvolutfon.  55 

pecially  in  the  absence  of  any  other 
even  competing  principle  at  the  present 
hour,  to  treat  it  as  a  baseless  dream. 

Only  the  peculiar  nature  of  this  great 
generalization  can  account  for  the  ex- 
traordinary enthusiasm  of  this  accept- 
ance. Evolution  involves  not  so  much 
a  change  of  opinion  as  a  change  in 
man's  whole  view  of  the  world  and  of 
life.  It  is  not  the  statement  of  a  mathe- 
matical proposition  which  men  are 
called  upon  to  declare  true  or  false.  It 
is  a  method  of  looking  upon  Nature. 
Science  for  centuries  devoted  itself  to 
the  cataloguing  of  facts  and  the  dis- 
covery of  laws.     Each  worker  toiled  in 


56  Zbe  revolution  of  Aan. 

his  own  little  place — the  geologist  in 
his  quarry,  the  botanist  in  his  garden, 
the  biologist  in  his  laboratory,  the  as- 
tronomer in  his  observatory,  the  his- 
torian in  his  library,  the "  archaeologist 
in  his  museum.  Suddenly  these  work- 
ers looked  up  ;  they  spoke  to  one  an- 
other; they  had  each  discovered  a  law ; 
they  whispered  its  name.  It  was  the 
same  word  that  went  round.  They  had 
each  discovered  Evolution.  Henceforth 
their  work  was  one,  science  was  one, 
the  world  was  one,  and  mind,  which 
discovered  the  oneness,  was  one. 


ail  ttbtnfls  are  IRtstnfl.  57 

ALL  THINGS  ARE  RISING. 

But  this  is  not  the  whole  result  of 
this  discovery.  The  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion has  ushered  a  new  hope  into  the 
world.  Nature  is  to  be  read  not  only 
with  the  eyes,  but  with  the  mind  ;  not 
only  with  the  mind,  but  with  the  soul. 
If  Man,  and  all  that  is  in  Man,  are  to 
be  the  subjects  of  Evolution,  Man  and 
all  that  is  in  Man  must  view  the  proc- 
ess, must  form  the  audience,  must  pro- 
nounce upon  the  meaning  or  the  mean- 
inglessness  of  the  spectacle.  Sum- 
moned to  this  task,  the  whole  man  sum- 
moned, there  can  be  but  one  verdict  as 


58  Zbe  Evolution  of  Obtm* 

to  the  import  of  Evolution,  as  to  its 
bearing  upon  the  individual  life,  and 
the  future  of  the  race.  The  supreme 
message  of  Science  to  this  age  is 
that  all  Nature  is  on  the  side  of  the 
man  who  tries  to  rise.  Evolution,  de- 
velopment, progress  are  not  only  on  her 
programme,  these  are  her  programme. 
For  all  things  are  rising,  all  worlds,  all 
planets,  all  stars  and  suns.  An  ascend- 
ing energy  is  in  the  universe,  and  the 
whole  moves  on  with  one  mighty  idea 
and  anticipation.  The  aspiration  in 
the  human  mind  and  heart  is  but  the 
evolutionary  tendency  of  the  universe 
becoming  conscious.      Darwin's  great 


l)ope  of  ^Evolution.  69 

discovery,  or  the  discovery  which  he 
heralded,  is  the  same  as  Galileo's — that 
the  world  moves.  The  Italian  prophet 
said  it  moves  from  west  to  east ;  the 
English  philosopher  said  it  moves  from 
low  to  high.  And  this  is  the  last  and 
most  splendid  contribution  of  Science 
to  the  faith  of  the  world. 


THE  HOPE  OF   EVOLUTION. 

The  discovery  of  a  second  motion  in 
the  earth  has  come  into  the  world  of 
thought  only  in  time  to  save  it  from 
despair.  As  in  the  days  of  Galileo, 
there  are  many  even  now  who  do  not 


60  Zbc  Bvolutfon  ot  /Ban. 

see  that  the  world  moves — men  to  whom 
the  earth  is  but  an  endless  plain,  a 
prison  fixed  in  a  purposeless  universe 
where  untried  prisoners  await  their  un- 
known fate.  It  is  not  the  monotony  of 
life  which  destroys  men,  but  its  point- 
lessness  ;  they  can  bear  its  weight,  its 
meaninglessness  crushes  them.  But 
the  same  great  revolution  that  the  dis- 
covery of  the  axial  rotation  of  the  earth 
effected  in  the  realm  of  physics,  the 
announcement  of  the  doctrine  of  Evo- 
lution rnakes  in  the  moral  world.  Al- 
ready, even  in  these  days  of  its  dawn, 
a  sudden  and  marvellous  light  has  fallen 
upon  earth  and  heaven.     Evolution  is 


t)opc  of  Erolutfon.  61 

less  a  doctrine  than  a  light ;  it  is  a  light 
revealing  in  the  chaos  of  the  past  a  per- 
fect and  growing  order,  giving  meaning 
even  to  the  confusion  of  the  present, 
discovering  through  all  the  deviousness 
around  us  the  paths  of  progress  and 
flashing  its  rays  already  upon  a  coming 
goal. 

Men  begin  to  see  an  uudeviating 
ethical  purpose  in  this  material  world, 
a  tide,  that  from  eternity  has  never 
turned,  making  for  perfectness.  In  that 
vast  progression  of  Nature,  that  vision  of 
all  things  from  the  first  of  time  moving 
from  low  to  high,  from  incomplete- 
ness to  completeness,  from  imperfection 


62  Zbc  Evolution  of  /Ran. 

to  perfection,  the  moral  nature  recog- 
nizes in  all  its  height  and  depth  the 
eternal  claim  upon  itself.  Wholeness 
and  perfection — Holiness  and  Right- 
eousness— these  have  always  been  re- 
quired of  Man.  But  never  before  on 
the  natural  plane  have  they  been 
proclaimed  by  voices  so  commanding, 
or  enforced  by  sanctions  so  great  and 
rational. 

*'  The  study  of  the  historical  develop- 
ment of  man,"  says  Prof.  Edward 
Caird,  "especially  in  respect  of  his 
higher  life,  is  not  only  a  matter  of  ex- 
ternal or  merely  speculative  curiosity  ; 
it  is  closely  connected  with  the  dev^- 


Ibopc  ot  Evolution.  63 

opment  of  that  life  in  ourselves.  For 
we  learu  to  know  ourselves,  first  of  all, 
in  the  mirror  of  the  world  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  our  knowledge  of  our  own  na- 
ture and  of  its  possibilities  grows  and 
deepens  with  our  understanding  of  what 
is  without  us,  and  most  of  all  with  our 
understanding  of  the  general  history  of 
man.  It  has  often  been  noticed  that 
there  is  a  certain  analogy  between  the 
life  of  the  individual  and  that  of  the 
race,  and  even  that  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  a  sort  of  epitome  of  the  his- 
tory of  humanity.  But,  as  Plato  al- 
ready discovered,  it  is  by  reading  the 
large  letters  that  we  learn  to  interpret 


64  Zbc  ^evolution  of  /ISan. 

the  small.  ...  It  is  only  through  a 
deepened  consciousness  of  the  world 
that  the  human  spirit  can  solve  its  own 
problem.  Especially  is  this  true  in  the 
region  of  anthropology.  For  the  inner 
life  of  the  individual  is  deep  and  full 
just  in  proportion  to  the  width  of  his 
relations  to  other  men  and  things  ;  and 
his  consciousness  of  what  he  is  in  him- 
self as  a  spiritual  being  is  dependent  on 
a  comprehension  of  the  position  of  his 
individual  life  in  the  great  secular 
process  by  which  the  intellectual  and 
moral  life  of  humanity  has  grown  and 
is  growing.  Hence  the  highest  practi- 
cal, as  well  as  speculative,  interests  of 


^Evolution  ot  tbc  Bnlmal  /Bban.       65 

men  are  connected  with  the  new  exten- 
sion of  science  which  has  given  fresh 
interest  and  meaning  to  the  whole  his- 
tory of  the  race. ' ' 

And  now  let  us  proceed  to  the  sub- 
ject proper  by  considering  the 

EVOLUTION   OF   THE   ANIMAL   MAN. 

The  embryo  of  the  future  man  begins 
life,  like  the  primitive  savage,  in  a  one- 
roomed  hut,  a  single  simple  cell.  This 
cell  is  round  and  almost  microscopic  in 
size.  When  fully  formed  it  measures 
only  one-tenth  of  a  line  in  diameter, 
and  with  the  naked  eye  can  be  barely 

discerned   as  a  very   fine   point.      An 
5 


66  Zbe  JEvolution  of  ^an. 

outer  covering,  transparent  as  glass, 
surrounds  this  little  sphere,  and  in  the 
interior,  embedded  in  protoplasm,  lies 
a  bright  globular  spot.  In  form,  in 
size,  in  composition  there  is  no  appar- 
ent diflference  between  this  human  cell 
and  that  of  any  other  mammal.  The 
dog,  the  elephant,  the  lion,  the  ape, 
and  a  thousand  others  begin  their 
widely  dififerent  lives  in  a  house  the 
same  as  man's.  At  an  earlier  stage, 
indeed,  before  it  has  taken  on  its  pel- 
lucid covering,  this  cell  has  affinities 
still  more  astonishing  ;  for  at  that  re- 
moter period,  the  earlier  forms  of  all 
living  things,  both  plant  and  animal, 


jEvolution  of  tbc  animal  /Bban.       67 

are  one.  It  is  oue  of  the  most  astound- 
ing facts  developed  by  modern  science 
that  the  first  embryonic  abodes  of  moss 
and  fern  and  pine,  of  shark  and  crab 
and  coral  polyp,  of  lizard,  leopard, 
monkey  and  man  are  so  exactly  similar 
that  the  highest  powers  of  mind  and 
microscope  fail  to  trace  the  smallest 
distinction  between  them. 

"  Even  under  the  highest  magnifying 
power  of  the  best  microscope,"  says 
Haeckel,  "there  appears  to  be  no  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  eggs  of  man, 
of  the  ape,  of  the  dog,  etc.  This  does 
not  mean  that  they  are  not  really  differ- 
ent in   these   different  mammals.     On 


68  XLbc  Evolution  of  /llban. 

tlie  contraty,  we  must  assume  that  such 
differences,  at  least  in  point  of  chemical 
constitution,  exist  universally.  In  ac- 
cordance with  the  law  of  individual  va- 
riation, we  must  assume  that  all  indi- 
vidual organisms  are,  from  the  very 
beginning  of  their  individual  existence, 
different  though  often  very  similar. 
But  with  our  rough  and  incomplete 
apparatus  we  are  not  in  a  position 
actually  to  perceive  these  delicate  indi- 
vidual differences  which  must  often  be 
sought  only  in  the  molecular  struc- 
ture." 

But  let  us  watch  the  development  of 
this  one — called  human  embryo.      In- 


Evolution  of  tbc  Bnimal  Man.       69 

crease  of  rooms  iu  architecture  can  be 
effected  in  either  of  two  ways — by- 
building  entirely  new  rooms,  or  by 
partitioning  old  ones.  Both  of  these 
methods  are  employed  in  Nature.  The 
first,  gemmation,  or  budding,  is  common 
among  the  lower  forms  of  life.  The 
second,  differentiation  by  partition,  or 
segmentation,  is  the  approved  method 
among  higher  animals  and  is  that 
adopted  in  the  case  of  man.  It  pro- 
ceeds, after  the  fertilized  ovum  has 
completed  the  complex  preliminaries 
of  karyokinesis,  by  the  division  of  the 
interior-contents  into  two  equal  parts, 
so  that  the  original  cell  is  now  occupied 


70  Zbc  Evolutton  of  iflRan. 

by  two  nucleated  cells  with  the  old 
cell-wall  surrounding  them  outside. 
The  two-roomed  house  is,  in  the  next 
development,  and  by  a  similar  process 
of  segmentation,  developed  into  a  struc- 
ture of  four  rooms,  and  this  into  one  of 
eight,  and  so  on. 

When  the  multicellular  globe,  made 
up  of  countless  offshoots  or  divisions  of 
the  original  pair,  has  reached  a  certain 
size,  its  centre  becomes  filled  with  a 
tiny  lakelet  of  watery  fluid.  This  fluid 
gradually  increases  in  quantity,  and 
pushing  the  cells  outward,  packs  them 
into  a  single  layer,  circumscribing  it  on 
every  side  with   an  elastic  wall.     At 


Evolution  of  tbe  Bnlmal  /llban.       71 

one  part  a  dimple  soon  appears,  which 
slowly  deepens  until  a  complete  hollow 
is  formed,  the  invagination  of  tlie 
sphere  being  carried  so  far  that  the 
cells  at  the  bottom  of  the  hollow  touch 
those  at  the  opposite  side.  The  ovum 
has  now  become  an  open  bag  or  cup — a 
cup  such  as  one  might  make  by  doubling 
in  an  India-rubber  ball — the  gastrula 
of  biology. 

The  great  evolutionary  interest  of 
this  development  lies  in  the  fact  that 
probably  all  animals  above  the  Protozoa 
pass  through  this  gastrula  stage.  That 
some  of  the  lower  Metazoa^  indeed, 
never  develop  much  beyond  it  may  be 


72  XTbe  Bvolutfon  of  /llban. 

shown  by  a  glance  at  the  structure  of 
the  humbler  Coelenterates — the  sim- 
plest of  all  illustrations  of  the  fact  that 
embryonic  forms  of  higher  animals  are 
usually  permanently  represented  by  the 
adult  forms  of  lower.  The  chief  thing, 
however,  to  note  here  is  the  doubling- 
in  of  the  ovum  to  gain  a  double  instead 
of  a  single  wall  of  cells.  For  these  two 
different  layers — the  ectoderm  and  the 
endoderm,  or  the  animal  layer  and  the 
vegetal  layer — play  a  unique  part  in  the 
after-history  ;  all  the  organs  of  move- 
ment and  sensation  spring  from  the 
one,  all  the  organs  of  nutrition  and  re- 
production develop  from  the  other. 


Evolution  of  tbc  Bnimal  /iBan.       73 

Soon  the  number  of  chambers  is  so 
great  that  count  is  lost,  and  the  activity 
becomes  so  vigorous  in  every  direction 
that  one  ceases  to  notice  individual 
cells  at  all.  The  tenement,  in  fact, 
consists  now  of  innumerable  groups  of 
cells  congregated  together,  suites  of 
apartments,  as  it  were,  which  have 
quickly  arranged  themselves  in  sym- 
metrical, definite,  and  withal  different 
forms.  Were  these  forms  not  diflferent 
as  well  as  definite,  we  should  hardly 
call  it  an  evolution,  nor  should  we 
characterize  the  resulting  aggregation 
as  a  higher  organism.  A  hundred  cot- 
tages placed  in  a  row  would  never  form 


74  XLbe  ;6\>olut(on  ot  /Ban. 

a  castle.  What  makes  the  castle  supe- 
rior to  the  hundred  cottages  is  not  the 
number  of  its  rooms,  for  they  are  possi- 
bly fewer ;  nor  their  differences  in 
shape,  for  that  is  immaterial.  It  lies  in 
the  nature  and  number  and  variety  of 
useful  purposes  to  which  the  rooms  are 
put,  the  perfection  with  which  each  is 
adapted  to  its  end,  and  the  harmonious 
co-operation  among  them  with  refer- 
ence to  some  common  work.  This  also 
is  the  distinction  between  a  higher 
animal  and  a  humble  creature  like  the 
centipede  or  the  worm,  which  are  but 
aggregations  of  similar  segments.  The 
fact  that  any  growing  embryo  is  passing 


Evolution  ot  tbe  Hnimal  /iBan.       75 

through  a  real  development  is  decided 
by  the  new  complexity  of  structure,  by 
the  more  perfect  division  of  labor,  and 
of  better  kinds  of  labor,  and  by  the  in- 
crease in  range  and  efficiency  of  the 
correlated  functions  discharged  by  the 
whole.  In  the  development  of  the  hu- 
man embryo  the  differentiating  and 
integrating  forces  are  steadily  acting 
and  co-operating  from  the  first,  so  that 
the  result  is  not  a  mere  aggregation  of 
similar  cells,  but  an  organism  with 
many  different  parts  and  many  varied 
functions. 


76  Zbe  Evolution  of  /iBan. 

THE    DISTANCE   MAN   HAS   COME. 

But  to  the  student  of  evolution  it  is 
not  the  beauty  of  this  development  that 
is  the  significant  thing  ;  nor  is  it  the 
occultness  of  the  process,  nor  the  per- 
fection of  the  result,  that  fills  him  with 
awe  as  he  surveys  the  finished  work. 
It  is  the  immense  distance  man  has 
come.  Between  the  early  cell  and  the 
formed  body,  the  ordinary  observer  sees 
the  uneventful  passage  of  perhaps  some 
score  of  months.  But  the  evolutionist 
sees  concentrated  into  these  few  months 
the  labor  and  the  progress  of  incalcula- 
ble asres.     Here  before  him  is  the  entire 


tlbc  Dtstance  /iBan  bas  Come.       77 

stretch  of  time  since  life  first  dawned 
upon  the  earth  ;  and  as  he  watches  the 
nascent  organism  climbing  to  its  ma- 
turity he  witnesses  a  spectacle  which 
for  strarngeness  and  majesty  stands  alone 
in  the  field  of  biological  research. 
What  he  sees  before  him  is  not  the 
mere  shaping  or  sculpturing  of  a  man. 
The  human  form  does  not  expand  like 
a  flower  from  its  own  flower-like  bud. 
In  all  this,  for  a  long  time,  there  is 
nothing  the  least  like  a  man.  What  he 
sees  is  a  succession  of  animal  forms,  of 
strange  inhuman  creatures  emerging 
from  a  crowd  of  still  stranger  and  still 
more  inhuman  creatures — a  vast  proces- 


IB  Zbc  JEvolution  ot  .flRan. 

sion  of  lower  forms  of  life.  And  it  is 
only  after  a  prolonged  and  unrecogniz- 
able series  of  metamorphoses  that  they 
culminate  in  some  faint  semblance  of 
an  image  of  one  of  the  newest  yet  the 
oldest  of  created  things.  Hitherto  we 
have  been  taught  to  look  among  the 
fossiliferous  formations  of  geology  for 
the  buried  lives  of  the  earth's  past. 
But  recent  science  has  startled  the 
world  by  declaring  that  the  ancient  life 
of  the  earth  is  not  dead.  It  is  risen. 
It  exists  to-day  in  the  embryos  of  still- 
living  things,  and  some  of  the  most 
archaic  types  find  again  a  resurrection 
and  a  life  in  the  frame  of  man  himself. 


Zbe  Distance  fSSan  bas  Come.       79 

It  is  an  amazing  and  an  almost  in- 
credible story.  In  the  successive  trans- 
formations of  the  human  embryo  there 
is  a  visible,  actual,  physical  representa- 
tion of  part  of  the  life-history  of  the 
world.  Human  embryology  is  a  con- 
densed zoology,  a  recapitulation  and 
epitome  of  the  main  chapters  in  the 
natural  history  of  the  world.  The 
same  processes  of  development  which 
once  took  thousands  of  years  for  their 
consummation  are  here  condensed,  fore- 
shortened, concentrated  into  the  space 
of  months.  Nature  husbands  all  its 
gains.  A  momentum  won  is  never  lost. 
Each  platform  reached  by  the  human  em- 


80  ^be  jEvolutton  of  /iBan. 

bryo  in  its  upward  course  represents  the 
embryo  of  some  lower  animal  which  in 
some  mysterious  way  has  played  a  part 
in  the  pedigree  of  the  human  race,  which 
haply  has  itself  long  since  disappeared 
from  off  the  earth,  but  is  now  and  forever 
built  into  the  inmost  being  of  man. 
These  lower  animals,  each  at  its  succes- 
sive stage,  have  stopped  short  in  their 
development  ;  man  has  gone  on.  At 
each  fresh  advance  his  embryo  is  found 
again  abreast  of  some  other  animal  form 
a  little  higher  than  that  just  passed. 
Continuing  his  ascent  that  also  is  over- 
taken, the  now  very  complex  embryo 
making  up  to  one  animal-embryo  after 


Zbc  S)i6tancc  /Ban  bag  Come.        81 

another  until  it  lias  distanced  all  in  its 
series,  and  stands  alone. 

As  the  modern  stem-winding  watch 
contains  the  old  clepsydra  and  all  the 
most  useful  features  in  all  the  time- 
keepers that  were  ever  made  ;  as  the 
Walter  printing-press  contains  the  rude 
hand-machine  of  Guttenburg,  and  all 
the  best  in  all  the  machines  that  fol- 
lowed it  ;  as  the  locomotive  of  to-day- 
contains  the  engine  of  Watt,  the  loco- 
motives of  Hedley  and  of  Stephenson, 
and  most  of  the  improvements  of  suc- 
ceeding years,  so  man  contains  the  em- 
bryonic bodies  of  earlier  and  humbler 
and  clumsier  forms  of   life.      Yet  in 


83  XLbe  Evolution  ot  /Ran. 

making  the  Walter  press  in  a  modem 
workshop  the  artificer  does  not  begin 
by  building  again  the  press  of  Gutten- 
burg,  nor  in  constructing  the  locomo- 
tive does  the  engineer  first  take  a  Watt's 
machine,  and  then  incorporate  the  Hed- 
ley,  and  then  the  Stephenson,  and  so 
on  through  all  the  improving  types  of^ 
engines  that  have  led  up  to  this. 

But  the  astonishing  thing  is  that  in 
making  a  man.  Nature  does  introduce 
the  framework  of  these  earlier  types, 
displaying  each  crude  pattern  by  itself 
before  incorporating  it  in  the  finished 
work. 

The  human  embryo,  to  change  the 


^be  ©(stance  ^an  baa  Come.       83 

figure,  is  a  subtle  phantasmagoria,  a 
living  theatre  in  which  a  weird  trans- 
formation scene  is  being  enacted,  and 
in  which  countless  strange  and  uncouth 
characters  take  part.  Some  of  these 
characters  are  well  known  to  science, 
some  are  strangers.  As  the  embryo  un- 
folds, one  by  one  these  animal  actors 
come  upon  the  stage,  file  past  in  phan- 
tom-like procession,  throw  off  their 
drapery,  and  dissolve  away  into  some- 
thing else.  Yet  as  they  vanish  each 
leaves  behind  a  vital  portion  of  itself, 
some  original  and  characteristic  me- 
morial, something  itself  hath  made  or 
won,  that  perhaps  it  alone  could  make 


84  Zbe  ^Evolution  of  flban. 

or  win — a  bone,  a  muscle,  a  ganglion 
or  a  tooth — to  be  the  inheritance  of  the 
race.  And  it  is  only  after  nearly  all 
have  played  their  part  and  dedicated 
their  gift  that  a  human  form,  mysteri- 
ously compounded  of  all  that  has  gone 
before,  begins  to  be  discerned  in  their 
midst. 

The  duration  of  this  process,  the  pro- 
found antiquity  of  the  last  survivor, 
the  tremendous  height  he  has  scaled, 
are  inconceivable  by  the  faculties  of 
man.  But  measure  the  very  lowest  of 
the  successive  platforms  passed  in  the 
ascent  and  see  how  very  great  a  thing 
it  is  even  to  rise  at  all.     The  single  cell, 


Cbe  Distance  /ifcan  bas  Come.       85 

the  first  definite  stage  which  the  human 
embryo  attains,  is  still  the  adult  form 
of  countless  millions  both  of  animals 
and  plants.  Just  as  in  modern  America 
the  millionaire's  mansion — the  evolved 
form — is  surrounded  by  laborers'  cot- 
tages— the  simple  form — so  in  nature, 
living  side  by  side  with  the  many-celled 
higher  animals,  is  an  immense  democ- 
racy of  unicellular  artisans.  These 
simple  cells  are  perfect  living  things. 
The  earth,  the  water  and  the  air  teem 
with  them  everywhere.  They  move, 
they  eat,  they  reproduce  their  like. 
But  one  thing  they  do  not  do — they  do 
not  rise.     These  organisms  have,  as  it 


86  XLbc  Evolution  of  /iBan. 

were,  stopped  short  in  the  ascent  of 
life.  And  long  as  Evolution  has  worked 
upon  the  earth  the  vast  numerical  ma- 
jority of  plants  and  animals  are  still  at 
this  low  stage  of  being.  So  minute 
are  some  of  these  forms  that  if  their 
one-roomed  huts  were  arranged  in  a 
row  it  would  take  twelve  thousand  to 
form  a  street  a  single  inch  in  length. 
In  their  watery  cities — for  most  of  them 
are  lake-dwellers — a  population  of  eight 
hundred  thousand  million  could  be  ac- 
commodated within  a  cubic  inch.  Yet 
as  there  was  a  period  in  human  history 
when  none  but  cave-dwellers  lived  in 
Europe,  so  was  there  a  time  when  the 


jflrst  Staflcs.  87 

highest  forms  of  life  upon  the  globe 
were  these  microscopic  things.  See 
therefore  the  meaning  of  Evolution 
from  the  want  of  it.  In  a  single  hour 
or  second  the  human  embryo  attains  the 
platform  which  represents  the  whole 
life-achievement  of  myriads  of  genera- 
tions of  living  things,  and  the  next  day 
or  hour  is  immeasurable  centuries  be- 
yond them. 


FIRST  STAGES. 

Through  all  what  zoological  regions 
the  embr}'o  passes  in  its  great  ascent 
from    the    one-celled    forms,    one    can 


88  Zbc  Evolution  of  /Hban. 

never  completely  tell.  Two  cells,  four 
cells,  eight  cells,  a  hundred  cells,  they 
succeed  one  another  with  such  rapidity 
that  it  is  impossible  at  each  separate 
stage  to  catch  the  actual  likeness  to  the 
embryo  of  other  animals.  Sometimes 
a  familiar  feature  suddenly  recalls  a 
form  well  known  to  science,  but  the 
likeness  fades,  and  the  developing  em- 
bryo seems  to  wander  among  the  ghosts 
of  departed  types.  Long  ago  these 
crude,  ancestral  forms  were  again  the 
highest  animals  upon  the  earth.  For 
a  few  thousand  years  they  reigned  su- 
preme, furthered  the  universal  evolu- 
tion by  a  hairsbreadth,  and  passed  away. 


^ntermcWate  Staoss.  89 

The  material  dust  of  their  bodies  is  laid 
long  since  in  the  Palaeozoic  rocks,  but 
their  life  and  labor  are  not  forgotten. 
For  their  gains  were  handed  on  to  a  suc- 
ceeding race,  from  that  transmitted 
through  an  endless  series  of  descend- 
ants till,  sifted,  enriched,  accentuated, 
and  still  dimly  recognizable,  they  re- 
appear in  the  physical  frame  of  Man. 


INTERMEDIATE  STAGES. 

After  the  early  stages  of  human 
development  are  passed,  the  transfor- 
mations become  more  definite,  and  the 
features    of   the    contributory    animals 


90  z\ic  Bvolution  of  ^an. 

more  recognizable.  Here,  for  example, 
is  a  stage  at  wliicli  the  embryo  in  its 
anatomical  characteristics  resembles 
that  of  the  Vermes  or  Worms.  As  yet 
there  is  no  head,  nor  neck,  nor  back- 
bone, nor  waist,  nor  limbs.  A  roughly 
cylindrical  headless  trunk — that  is  all 
that  stands  for  the  future  man.  One 
by  one  the  higher  Invertebrates  are  left 
behind,  and  then  occurs  the  most 
remarkable  change  in  the  whole  life- 
history.  This  is  the  laying  down  of 
the  line  to  be  occupied  by  the  spinal 
chord,  the  presence  of  which  hence- 
forth will  determine  the  place  of  Man 
in    the   Vertebrate    sub-kingdom.      At 


Sntcrmc^iatc  Stages.  91 

this  crisis,  the  eye  which  sweeps  the 
field  of  lower  Nature  for  an  analogue 
will  readily  find  it.  It  is  a  circum- 
stance of  extraordinary  interest  that 
there  should  be  living  upon  the  globe 
at  this  moment  an  animal  representing 
the  actual  transition  from  Invertebrate 
to  Vertebrate  life.  The  acquisition  of 
a  vertebral  column  is  one  of  the  great 
marks  of  height  which  Nature  has  be- 
stowed upon  her  creatures  ;  and  in  the 
shallow  waters  of  the  Mediterranean 
she  has  preserved  for  us  a  creature 
which,  whether  a  degenerate  form  or 
not,  can  only  be  likened  to  one  of  her 
first  rude  experiments  in  this  direction. 


93  Cbe  Bvolutton  of  /Iftan. 

This  animal  is  the  Lancelet,  or  Am- 
phioxus,  and  so  rudimentary  is  the 
backbone  that  it  does  not  contain  any 
bone  at  all,  but  only  a  shadow  or  proph- 
ecy of  it  in  cartilage.  The  cartilag- 
inous notochord  of  the  Amphioxus 
nevertheless  is  the  progenitor  of  all 
vertebral  columns,  and  in  the  first  in- 
stance this  structure  appears  in  the 
human  embryo  exactly  as  it  now  exists 
in  the  Lancelet.  But  this  is  only  a 
single  example.  In  living  Nature  there 
are  a  hundred  other  animal  character- 
istics which  at  one  stage  or  another 
the  biologist  may  discern  in  the  ever- 


Zbe  CUmaj.  93 

changing  kaleidoscope   of  the   human 
embryo. 


THE  CLIMAX. 

We  are  not  nearly  half-way  up  the 
ascent  yet,  but  the  outline  of  the 
marvellous  process  will  be  seen.  Up  to 
this  point  man  is  but  a  first  rough  draft, 
an  almost  formless  lump  of  clay.  As 
yet  there  is  no  distinct  head,  no  brain, 
no  jaws,  no  limbs  ;  the  heart  is  imper- 
fect, the  higher  visceral  organs  are 
feebly  developed,  everything  is  element- 
ary. But  gradually  new  organs  loom 
in  sight,  old  ones  increase  in  complexity. 


94  Zbe  Evolution  of  /Ran. 

By  a  magic  which  has  never  yet  been 
fathomed  the  hidden  Potter  shapes  and 
re-shapes  the  clay.  The  whole  grows 
in  size  and  symmetry.  Resemblances, 
this  time  to  the  embryos  of  the  lower 
vertebrate  series,  flash  out  as  each  new 
step  is  attained  ;  first  the  semblance  of 
the  Fish,  then  of  the  Amphibian,  then 
of  the  Reptile,  last  of  the  Mammal. 
Of  these  great  groups  the  leading  em- 
bryonic characters  appear  as  in  a  moving 
panorama,  some  of  them  pronounced 
and  unmistakable,  others  mere  sketches, 
suggestions,  likeness  of  infinite  subtlety. 
At  last  the  true  Mammalian  form 
emersres  from  the  crowd.     Far  ahead  of 


♦'Bll  JBut"  proved.  95 

all  at  this  stage  stand  out  three  species — 
the  Tailed  Catarrhine  Ape,  the  Tailless 
Catarrhine,  and  last,  differing  physi- 
cally from  these  mainly  by  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  brain  and  a  development 
of  the  larynx — Man. 


"all  but"  proved. 

Whatever  views  be  held  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Evolution,  whatever  theories 
of  its  cause,  these  facts  of  Embryology 
are  all  but  proved.  One  says  ' '  all  but ' ' 
proved  ;  for  in  perfect  fairness  one  must 
record  two  facts  on  which  any  one  may 
build  an  objection  if  he  feels  they  have 


96  Zbc  Evolution  of  jfllban. 

serious  strength.  The  first  is  that  the 
exact  genealogy  of  the  vertebrates  is 
not  yet  traced  in  every  minute  detail. 
Embryology  is  one  of  the  youngest  of 
the  sciences.  Man  at  present  has  a 
choice  of  early  relatives.  Though  his 
genealogical  line  is  generally  clear,  yet 
so  far  as  actual  and  specific  identification 
is  concerned,  he  is  still  "in  search  of 
a  father."  For  another  thing,  part  of 
this  embryological  argument  is  at  pres- 
ent founded  on  analogy.  Our  ideas  of 
the  probable  history  of  the  human 
ovum  for  the  first  few  days  are  mainly 
taken  from  our  knowledge  of  the 
development  of  other  mammals  and  of 


"ail  JBut"  proveO.  97 

birds    and    reptiles.     It    is   a    general 

scientific  fact,   however,   that  over   the 

graves  of    these   myriad  aspirants  the 

Animal  Man  has  risen.     It  was  formerly 

held  that  the  entire  animal  creation  had 

contributed  something  to  the  anatomy 

of  Man  ;  or  that,  as  Serres  expressed  it, 

"  Human  Organogenesis  is  a  condensed 

Comparative   Anatomy."     But  though 

Man  has  not  such  a  monopoly  of  the 

past  as   is   here   inferred — other  types 

having  here   and   there   diverged    and 

developed  along  lines  of  their  own — it 

is  certain  that  the  materials  for  his  body 

have   been  brought  together   from   an 
7 


98  Zbc  ]6volution  of  flbrni, 

unknown  multitude  of  lowlier  forms  of 
life. 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  THE  BODY. 

Those  who  know  the  Cathedral  of 
St.  Mark's  will  remember  how  this 
noblest  of  the  Stones  of  Venice  owes 
its  greatness  to  the  patient  hands  of 
centuries  and  centuries  of  workers,  how 
every  quarter  of  the  globe  has  been 
spoiled  of  its  treasures  to  dignify  this 
single  shrine.  But  he  who  ponders 
over  the  more  ancient  temple  of  the 
human  body  will  find  imagination  fail 
him   as   he   tries    to   think   from  what 


ITempIe  of  tbe  3BoOb.  09 

remote  and  mingled  sources,  from  what 
lands,  seas,  climates,  atmospheres,  its 
various  parts  have  been  called  together, 
and  by  what  innumerable  contributory- 
creatures,  swimming,  creeping,  flying, 
climbing,  each  of  its  several  members 
was  wrought  and  perfected.  What 
ancient  chisel  first  sculptured  the 
rounded  columns  of  the  limbs?  What 
dead  hands  built  the  cupola  of  the  brain, 
and.  from  what  older  ruins  were  the 
scattered  pieces  of  its  mosaic-work 
brought?  Who  fixed  the  windows  in 
its  upper  walls  ?  What  forgotten  looms 
wove  its  tapestries  and  draperies  ?  What 
winds     and     weathers     wrought     the 


100  Zbc  Bvolutlon  of  ^an. 

strength  into  its  buttresses?  What 
ocean-beds  and  forest  glades  worked  up 
the  colors  ?  What  Love  and  Terror  and 
Night  called  forth  the  Music?  And 
what  Life  and  Death  and  Pain  and 
Struggle  put  all  together  in  the  noise- 
less workshop  of  the  past  and  removed 
each  worker  silently  when  its  task  was 
done?  Of  how  all  these  things  came 
to  be  Biology  is  one  long  record.  The 
architects  and  builders  of  this  mighty 
temple  are  not  anonymous.  Their 
names  and  the  work  they  did  are  graven 
forever  on  the  walls  and  arches  of  the 
Human  Embryo.  For  this  is  a  volume 
of  that  Book  in  which  Man's  members 


©egraOation  or  JEjaltatlon.         lOl 

were  written,  which  in  continuance 
were  fashioned,  when  as  yet  there  was 
none  of  them. 


DEGRADATION  OR  EXALTATION. 

The  descent  of  man  from  the  animal 
kingdom  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  a 
degradation.  It  is  an  unspeakable  ex- 
altation. Recall  the  vast  antiquity  of 
that  primal  cell  from  which  the  human 
embryo  first  sets  forth.  Compass  the 
nature  of  the  potentialities  stored  up  in 
its  plastic  substance.  Watch  all  the 
busy  processes,  the  multiplying  energies, 
the  mystifying  transitions,  the  inexpli- 


103  Zbc  Bvolutton  of  /Bban. 

cable  chemistry  of  this  living  laboratory. 
Observe  the  variety  and  intricacy  of  its 
metamorphoses,  the  exquisite  gradation 
of  its  ascent,  the  unerring  aim  with 
which  the  one  type  unfolds — never  paus- 
ing, never  uncertain  of  its  direction, 
refusing  arrest  at  intermediate  forms, 
passing  on  to  its  flawless  maturity  with- 
out waste  or  effort  or  fatigue.  See  at 
every  turn  the  sense  of  motion,  of  pur- 
pose and  of  aspiration.  Discover  how, 
with  identity  of  process,  and  loyalty  to 
the  type,  a  hairsbreadth  of  deviation  is 
yet  secured  to  each,  so  that  no  two  forms 
come  out  the  same,  but  each  arises  an 
original  creation,  with  features,  charac- 


DegraOation  or  Bjaltation.         103 

teristlcs,  and  individualities  of  its  own. 
Remember  finally,  that  even  to  make 
the  first  cell  possible,  stellar  space  had 
to  be  swept  of  matter,  suns  had  to  be 
broken  up,  planets  had  to  cool,  the 
agents  of  geology  had  to  labor  for  mil- 
lenniums at  the  unfinished  earth,  and 
without  mould  or  mortar  fashion  the 
pedestal  to  hold  these  breathing  images 
of  the  Worker  who  made  them  all. 
Consider  all  this,  and  judge  if  Creation 
could  have  a  sublimer  meaning,  or  the 
human  race  possess  a  more  splendid 
genesis. 


Zhc  arrest  of  tbc  animal  Bobi^ 
of  riDan, 


Z\)C  arrest  of  tbc  animal  Bo^^ 
of  riDan. 

Not  less  remarkable  than  that  groups 
of  plants  and  animal  forms  have  ad- 
vanced by  gradual  modifications  during 
the  geological  ages  is  the  fact  that  other 
whole  groups  have  apparently  stood  still 
— stood  still  not  in  time,  but  in  organ- 
ization. If  nature  is  full  of  moving 
things,  it  is  also  full  of  fixtures.  Thirty- 
one  years  ago,  Mr.  Huxley  devoted  the 

(109) 


110  ^be  Evolution  of  ^an. 

anniversary  address  of  the  Geological 
Society  to  a  consideration  of  what  he 
called  "  Persistent  Types  of  Life,"  and 
threw  down  to  Evolutionists  a  puzzle 
which  has  never  yet  been  fully  solved. 
Ages  ago  the  morphological  possibilities 
along  certain  lines  of  bodily  structure 
seem  to  have  exhausted  themselves. 
While  some  forms  attained  their  climac- 
teric tens  of  thousands  of  years  ago  and 
perished,  others  persevered,  and,  with- 
out changing  in  any  material  respect, 
are  alive  to  this  day. 

Among  the  earliest  carboniferous 
plants,  for  instance,  there  are  found 
certain  forms  generically  identical  with 


Brrest  of  tbe  animal  JBoOg  of  ftbtin.  iii 

those  now  living.  The  cone  of  the 
existing  Araucaria  is  scarcely  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  that  of  an  oolite  form. 
The  Tabulate  Corals  of  the  Silurian 
period  are  similar  to  those  which  exist 
to-day.  The  Lamp-shells  of  our  present 
seas  so  abounded  at  the  same  ancient 
date  as  to  give  their  name  to  one  of  the 
great  groups  of  Silurian  rocks — the 
Lingula  Flags.  Star-fishes  and  Sea- 
urchins,  almost  the  same  as  those  which 
tenant  the  coast-lines  of  our  present 
seas,  crawled  along  what  are  now  among 
the  most  ancient  fossiliferous  rocks. 
Both  of  the  forms  just  named,  the 
Brachiopods  and  the  Echiuoderms,  have 


112  XLbe  Bvolution  of  ^an. 

come  down  to  us  almost  unchanged 
through  the  nameless  gap  of  time  which 
separates  the  Silurian  and  Old  Red 
Sandstone  periods  from  the  present  era. 
This  constancy  of  structure  reveals  a 
conservatism  in  Nature  as  unexpected 
as  it  is  widespread.  Does  it  mean  that 
the  architecture  of  living  things  has  a 
limit  beyond  which  development  can- 
not go  ?  In  Gothic  or  Norman  architect- 
ure there  are  terminal  points  which, 
once  reached,  can  be  but  little  improved 
upon.  Without  limiting  working  effi- 
ciency, they  can  go  no  further.  These 
styles  in  the  very  nature  of  things  seem 
to  have  limits. 


arrest  ot  tbc  animal  SJoO^  ot  /nban.  ii3 

Mr.  Ruskin  has  indeed  told  us  that  there 

are  only  three  possible  forms  of  good 

architecture  iu  the   world  :  Greek,  the 

architecture  of  the  Lintel ;  Romanesque, 

the  architecture  of  the  Rounded  Arch  ; 

Gothic,  the  architecture  of  the  Gable. 

All   the   architects    in    the    world,    he 

assures  us,  will  never  discover  any  other 

way  of    bridging    a   space   than    these 

three  ;  they  may  vary  the  curve  of  the 

arch,  or  curve  the  sides  of  the  gable,  or 

break  them  down  ;  but  in  doing  this  they 

are  merely  modifying  or  subdividing, 

not  adding  to  the  generic  form.     In  the 

same  way  there  may  be  terminal  generic 

forms  in  the  architecture  of  animals  ; 
8 


114  Zbc  Evolution  of  /Ran. 

and  the  persistent  types  just  named  may 
represent  in  their  several  directions  the 
natural  limits  of  possible  modification. 
No  further  modification  of  a  radical 
kind,  that  is  to  say,  could  in  these  in- 
stances be  introduced  without  detriment 
to  practical  efficiency.  These  terminal 
forms  thus  mark  a  normal  maturity  ; 
they  represent  the  ends  of  the  twigs  of 
the  tree  of  life. 


TERMINAL   POINTS. 

Now  consider  the  significance  of  that 
fact.  Nature  is  not  an  interminable 
succession.     It  is  not  always  a  becom- 


Gierminal  points.  lis 

ing.  Sometimes  things  arrive.  The 
Lamp-shells  have  arrived  :  they  are  a 
part  of  the  permanent  furniture  of  the 
world  ;  along  that  particular  line  there 
will  probably  never  be  anything  higher. 
The  Star-fishes  also  have  arrived  ;  and 
the  Sea-urchins  ;  and  the  Nautilus,  and 
the  Bony  Fishes,  and  the  Tapir,  and 
possibly  the  Horses — all  these  are  highly 
divergent  forms  which  have  run  out  the 
length  of  their  tether  and  can  go  no 
further.  When  the  plan  of  the  world 
was  made,  to  speak  teleologically,  these 
types  of  life  were  assigned  their  place 
and  limit,  and  there  they  have  remained. 
If  it  were  wanted  to  convey  the  impres- 


116  Zbe  Bvolution  of  jflBan. 

sion  that  Nature  had  some  large  end  in 
view,  that  she  was  not  drifting  aimlessly 
towards  a  general  higher  level,  it  could 
not  have  been  done  more  impressively 
than  by  everywhere  placing  on  the  field 
of  Science  these  fixed  points,  these  in- 
numerable consummations,  these  clean- 
cut  mountain  peaks,  which  for  millen- 
niums have  never  ascended  higher. 
Even  as  there  is  a  plan  in  the  parts, 
there  is  a  plan  in  the  whole. 


THE   BODY  OF  MAN. 

Now  the  most   certain   of  all   these 
"terminal  points"  in  the  evolution  of 


^bc  asoC)^  ot  /Bban.  in 

Creation  is  the  body  of  Mau.  Anatomy 
places  Man  at  the  head  of  all  other  ani- 
mals that  were  ever  made  ;  bnt  what  is 
infinitely  more  instructive,  with  him 
the  series  comes  to  an  end.  Man  is  not 
only  the  highest  branch,  but  the  highest 
possible  branch.  The  physical  tree  of 
life  has  here  run  out.  Take  the  only 
valid  testimony  on  this  point,  that  of 
anatomy  itself,  and  see  not  only  the  fact 
affirmed,  but  the  rationale  of  it.  In 
the  words  of  CI  el  land  : 

"  The  development  of  the  brain  is  in 
connection  with  a  whole  system  of  de- 
velopment of  the  head  and  face  which 
cannot  be  carried  further  than  in  Man. 


118  XLbc  JEvolution  of  ^an. 

For  the  mode  in  which  the  cranial  cav- 
ity is  gradually  increased  in  size  is  a 
regular  one,  which  may  be  explained 
thus  :  we  may  look  on  the  skull  as  an 
irregular  cylinder,  and  at  the  same  time 
that  it  is  expanded  by  increase  of  height 
and  width,  it  also  undergoes  a  curva- 
ture or  bending  on  itself,  so  that  the 
base  is  crumpled  together  while  the 
roof  is  elongated.  This  curving  has 
gone  on  in  man  till  the  fore  end  of  the 
cylinder,  the  part  on  which  the  brain 
rests  above  the  nose,  is  nearly  parallel 
to  the  aperture  of  communication  of 
the  skull  with  the  spinal  canal,  z.  /?., 
the  cranium  has  a  curve  of  i8o  or  a  few 


Zbc  3B0&B  of  /Dban.  119 

degrees  more  or  less.  This  curving  of 
the  base  of  the  skull  involves  change 
in  position  of  the  face  bones  also,  and 
could  not  go  on  to  a  further  extent 
without  cutting  off  the  nasal  cavity 
from  the  throat.  .  .  .  Thus  you  see 
there  is  anatomical  evidence  that  the 
development  of  the  vertebrate  form  has 
reached  its  limit  by  completion  in 
man."  *  This  author's  conception  of 
the  whole  field  of  living  nature  is  so 
suggestive  that  we  may  continue  the 
quotation  :  ' '  To  me  the  animal  king- 
dom appears  not  an  indefinite  growth 

*Prof.  J.   Clelland,  M.  D.,   LL.  D.,  F.  R.  S., 
Journal  of  Anatomy,  vol.  xviii.,  p.  361. 


120  Zbc  Bvolution  of  /Hban. 

like  a  tree,  but  a  temple  with  many 
minarets,  none  of  them  capable  of  being 
prolonged,  while  the  central  dome  is 
completed  by  the  structure  of  man. 
The  development  of  the  animal  king- 
dom is  the  development  of  intelligence 
chained  to  matter ;  the  animals  in 
which  the  nervous  system  has  reached 
the  greatest  perfection  are  the  verte- 
brates, and  in  Man  that  part  of  the 
nervous  system  which  is  the  organ  of 
intelligence  reaches,  as  I  have  sought  to 
show,  the  highest  development  possible 
to  a  vertebrate  animal,  while  intelli- 
gence itself  has  grown  to  reflection  and 
volition.     On  these  grounds,  I  believe, 


Brrest  of  tbc  Bnlmal.  121 

not  that  man  is  the  highest  possible  in- 
telligence, but  that  the  human  body  is 
the  highest  form  of  human  life  pos- 
sible, subject  to  the  conditions  of  mat- 
ter on  the  surface  of  the  globe,  and 
that  the  structure  completes  the  design 
of  the  animal  kingdom." 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  ANIMAL. 

Even  before  these  facts  about  the 
brain  were  known  Mr.  Fiske  had 
reached  the  same  conclusion  on  general 
grounds.  On  the  earth,  he  assures  us, 
there  will  never  be  a  higher  creature 
than  Man.     It  is  a  daring  prophecy,  but 


122  Cbe  Bvolutlon  of  /Ran. 

every  probability  of  science  substan- 
tiates it.  With  the  body  of  Man  the 
final  fruit  of  the  tree  of  Organic  Evolu- 
tion has  appeared.  In  Man,  about  this 
time  in  history,  we  are  confronted  with 
a  stupendous  crisis  in  Nature — the  ar- 
rest of  the  animal.  This  was  illus- 
trated by  the  case  of  the  hand.  The 
first  hand  was  the  Amoeba  hand,  and 
from  that  upwards  there  was  a  long  ar- 
ray of  more  and  more  accurate  instru- 
ments of  prehension  until  the  Chim- 
panzee hand  was  reached.  Even  for 
the  use  of  her  highest  product  Nature 
has  not  been  able  to  make  anything 
much  more  perfect  than  the  hand  of 


Hrtcet  of  tbc  animal.  123 

this  anthropoid  ape.  It  is  probable 
that  Nature  could  take  out  no  new 
patent  in  this  direction.  The  causes  up 
-to  this  point  which  furthered  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  hand  had  begun  to  cease  to 
act.  There  came  a  time  when  the  ne- 
cessities became  too  numerous  and  too 
varied  for  anatomical  adaptations  to 
keep  pace  with  them.  Then  came  a 
fatal  day  for  the  hand  when  the  discov- 
ery of  tools  was  made.  Henceforth 
what  the  hand  used  to  do,  and  was 
slowly  becoming  adapted  to  do  better, 
was  to  be  done  by  external  appli- 
ances. Tools  are  external  hands.  Le- 
vers are  the  extensions  of  the  bones  of 


124  XLbc  Bvolution  of  /Hban. 

the  arm.  Hammers  are  callous  substi- 
tutes for  the  fists.  Knives  do  the  work 
of  nails.  The  day  that  the  cave-man 
first  split  the  bone  of  a  bear  by  thrust- 
ing a  stick  in  it  and  striking  it  home 
with  a  stone,  the  doom  of  the  hand  was 
sealed.  Take  up  the  functions  of  the 
animal  body  one  by  one,  and  it  will  be 
seen  how  the  same  arresting  hand  is 
laid  upon  them  all. 

The  same  causes  that  lead  to  the  ar- 
rest of  the  hand  are  working  to  stop 
the  development  of  the  eye.  Spec- 
tacles, telescopes,  microscopes — external 
eyes — have  superseded  the  work  of  Or- 
ganic Evolution.     Science  has  not  only 


Brreet  of  tbe  animal.  135 

invented  these  better  eyes,  but  has  gone 
the  length  of  making  a  better  eye  to 
look  through  them — the  photographic 
eye.  In  at  least  five  important  particu- 
lars this  new  eye  is  superior  to  the  eyes 
of  Organic  Evolution.  It  can  see  where 
the  human  eye  with  the  best  aid  of 
optical  instruments  sees  nothing  at  all. 
It  can  distinguish  certain  objects  with 
far  greater  clearness  and  definition. 
Owing  to  the  rapidity  of  its  action  it 
can  detect  changes  which  are  too  sud- 
den for  the  human  eye  to  follow.  It 
can  look  steadily  for  hours  without 
growing  tired,  and  it  can  record  what 


126  Zbe  ^Evolution  of  /iRan. 

it  sees  with  infallible  accuracy  upon  a 
plate  which  time  will  not  efface. 

So  far  as  hearing  is  concerned,  the 
cause  which  has  mainly  furthered  its 
evolution  up  to  this  point — fear  of  sur- 
prise by  enemies — has  ceased  to  operate, 
and  the  muscles  for  the  erection  of  the 
ears  have  fallen  into  disuse  ;  while  the 
ear  itself,  in  contrast  with  that  of  the 
savage,  is  slow  and  dull.  The  skin, 
from  the  continuous  use  of  clothes,  has 
forfeited  its  protective  power.  Owing 
to  the  use  of  cooked  viands  the  muscles 
of  the  jaw  are  losing  strength.  The 
teeth  are  undergoing  marked  degenera- 
tion.    In  an  asre  of  vehicles  the  lower 


Hrreet  ot  tbe  animal,  127 

limbs  find  their  occupation  almost  gone, 
especially  in  America.  For  mere  mus- 
cle, man  has  almost  now  no  use.  Nim- 
bleness  and  strength,  once  a  necessity, 
are  either  a  luxury  or  a  pastime.  Once 
all  men  were  athletes  ;  now  you  have  to  - 
pay  to  see  them.  To  some  extent  at 
least  some  phonograph  may  yet  speak 
for  us,  some  telephone  hear  for  us,  some 
typewriter  write  for  us,  chemistry  di- 
gest for  us,  and  incubation  nurture  us. 
So  everywhere  the  animal  in  Man  is  in 
danger  of  losing  ground.  He  has  ex- 
panded until  the  world  is  his  body. 

The  former  body,   the  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  or  so  of  organized  tis- 


128  ^be  Bvolutfon  ot  /Ban. 

sue  he  carries  about  with  him,  is  little 
more  than  a  mark  of  identity.  His 
body  no  longer  generates  but  only 
utilizes  energy.  It  is  but  a  link  with 
the  wider  framework  of  the  arts  ;  a 
belt  between  machinery  and  machin- 
ery, a  turncock  of  the  physical  forces. 
Never  was  the  body  of  Man  greater 
than  with  this  sentence  of  suspen- 
sion passed  upon  us.  This  marked  an 
era  in  the  world's  history  ;  the  cycle 
of  matter  was  now  complete.  Evolu- 
tion had  culminated  in  a  creation  so  ex- 
alted and  complex  as  to  form  the  founda- 
tion of  a  new  and  inconceivably  loftier 
order    of   beinsf.      Nature    is    full    of 


Brrcst  of  tbe  Bnfmal.  129 

new  departures,  but  since  time  began 
there  never  was  anything  approaching 
in  importance  that  period  when  the 
animal  brain  broke'  into  activity  and 
the  creature  first  felt  it  had  a  mind. 
Henceforth  intelligence  triumphed  over 
physiological  adaptation  ;  the  wise  were 
naturally  selected  before  the  strong. 
The  favors  of  evolution  were  now  lav- 
ished upon  the  brain,  and  Man  entered 
into  final  possession  of  a  monopoly 
which  can  never  be  disturbed.  The 
ethical  implications  of  all  this  were  sig- 
nificant and  overwhelming. 
9 


^be  IReslbuum  of  tbe  Hnlmal 
in  flDan. 


^be  1Rc6ibuum  of  tbe  animal 
In  HDan* 

When  man  emerges  from  his  long 
sojourn  in  the  Animal  Kingdom  he 
returns  laden  with  relics  to  show  where 
he  has  been.  These  things  were  once 
part  of  his  ancestor's  life  and  lot ;  they 
represent  organs  which  have  been  out- 
grown ;  old  forms  of  apparatus  long 
since  exchanged  for  better,  yet  somehow 
not  yet  destroyed  by  the  hand  of  time. 

The  physical  body  of  Man,  so  great  is 

(135) 


136  Cbe  lEvolution  ot  ^an. 

the  number  of  these  relics,  is  an  old 
curiosity-shop,  a  miisenm  of  obsolete 
anatomies,  discarded  tools,  outgrown 
and  aborted  organs.  All  other  animals 
also  contain  among  their  useful  organs 
a  proportion  which  are  long  past  their 
work  ;  and  so  significant  are  these  rudi- 
ments of  a  former  state  of  things  that 
anatomists  have  often  expressed  their 
willingness  to  stake  the  theory  of 
Descent  upon  their  presence  alone. 


TRACES  OF  THE  SEA. 

Prominent     among     these    vestigial 
structures,  as  they  are  called,  are  those 


Zvacee  ot  tbc  Sea.  137 

which  smack  of  the  sea.  At  one  time 
there  was  nothing  else  in  the  world  but 
sea- water  life  ;  all  the  land  animals  are 
late  Evolutions.  One  reason  why  ani- 
mals began  in  the  water  is  that  it  is 
easier  to  live  in  the  water — anatomi- 
cally and  physiologically  cheaper — than 
to  live  on  the  land.  The  denser  element 
supports  the  body  better,  demanding  a 
less  supply  of  muscle  and  bone  ;  and 
the  perpetual  motion  of  the  sea  brings 
the  food  to  the  animal,  instead  of 
making  it  necessary  for  the  animal  to 
move  to  the  food.  This  and  other  cor- 
related circumstances  call  for  far  less 
mechanism  in  the  body,  and,  as  a  matter 


138  tlbc  Evolution  of  ^an. 

of  fact,  all  the  simplest  forms  of  living 
at  the  present  time  are  inhabitants  of 
the  water. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  a  fish  is, 
of  course,  its  apparatus  for  breathing  the 
air  dissolved  in  the  water.  This  con- 
sists of  gills  supported  on  strong  arches, 
the  branchial  arches,  which  in  the  Elas- 
mobranch  fishes  are  from  five  to  seven 
in  number,  and  are  not  covered  by  any 
operculum  or  lid.  Communicating  with 
these  arches,  in  order  to  allow  the  water 
which  has  been  taken  in  at  the  mouth 
to  pass  out  at  the  gills,  an  equal  num- 
ber of  slits  or  openings  are  provided  in 
the  neck.     Without  these  holes  in  their 


^Traces  of  tbe  Sea.  139 

neck  all  fishes  would  instantly  perish, 
and  we  may  be  sure  Nature  took  excep- 
tional care  in  perfecting  this  particular 
piece  of  mechanism.  Now,  it  is  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  facts  in 
natural  history  that  these  slits  in  the 
fish's  neck  are  still  represented  in  the 
neck  of  Man.  Almost  the  most  prom- 
inent feature,  indeed,  after  the  head, 
in  every  mammalian  embryo,  are  the 
four  clefts  or  furrows  of  the  old  gill- 
slits.  They  are  still  known  in  embry- 
ology by  no  other  name — gill-slits — and 
so  persistent  are  these  characters  that 
children  have  been  known  to  be  born 
with  them  not  only  externally  visible — 


140  Zbc  Evolutton  of  annn. 

which  is  a  common  occurrence — but 
open  through  and  through,  so  that  fluids 
taken  in  at  the  mouth  could  pass  through 
them  and  trickle  out  at  the  neck. 
Almost  more  remarkable  is  a  second 
association  of  these  vestigial  structures 
with  what  are  known  as  cervical  ears. 

Nature  seldom  parts  with  any  struct- 
ure she  has  ever  taken  the  trouble  to 
make.  She  changes  it  into  something 
else.  She  rarely  also  makes  anything 
new.  Her  method  of  creation  is  to 
adapt  something  old.  Grant  that  the 
marine  animals  passed  into  land  ani- 
mals, and  that  then  the  water-breathing 
apparatus  proved  useless,  what  became 


^Traces  of  tbc  Sea.  in 

of  it?  One  of  the  first  things  needed 
by  the  animal  is  an  improved  apparatus 
for  hearing.  In  fishes  sound  enters 
through  the  walls  of  the  head  to  an  in- 
ternal ear.  The  land  animal  needs  an 
external  ear.  The  external  and  middle 
ear  in  man  have  been  made  out  of  the 
first  gill-slit  and  its  surrounding  parts. 
Ears  are  sometimes  found  in  human 
beings  bursting  out  half-way  down  the 
neck,  at  the  place  which  gill-slits  would 
occupy  if  they  still  persisted.  These 
vestiges  appear  occasionally,  not  only 
in  human  beings,  but  also  in  the  lower 
animals. 


142  Zbc  jEvolutton  of  ffbnn, 

SURVIVALS  OF  THE    APE. 

.  Then  there  is  the  survival  of  the  tip 
of  the  ancestral  ear  which  was  noticed 
by  Mr.  Darwin  ;  the  survival  of  the 
power  to  move  the  ears  and  the  skin  of 
the  forehead  and  scalp — a  power  once 
useful  for  shaking  flies  oflf  the  skin  ;  the 
nictitating  membrane  of  the  eye,  for 
sweeping  that  member  clean  ;  the 
human  tail,  which  appears  in  the  human 
embryo,  where  may  also  be  seen  the 
muscles  for  wagging  it ;  the  rudimentary 
hair  on  the  arm  connected  in  its  direc- 
tion with  the  arboreal  habits  of  the 
anthropoid  apes. 


Survivals  of  tbc  Bpc.  i-i3 

Coming  under  the  same  category  is 
perhaps  the  most  striking  of  all  the 
vestigial  organs  of  man — that  of  the 
Vermiform  Appendage  of  the  Caecum. 
Here  is  a  structure  which  is  not  ouly 
of  no  use  to  man  now,  but  is  a  veritable 
death  trap.  In  herbivorous  animals  this 
"blind  tube"  is  very  large — longer  in 
some  cases  than  the  body  itself — and 
of  great  use  in  digestion,  but  in  man  it 
is  shrunken  into  the  merest  rudiment, 
while  in  the  orang-outang  it  is  only  a  lit- 
tle larger.  In  the  human  subject,  owing 
to  its  diminutive  size,  it  can  be  of  no 
use  whatever,  while  it  forms  an  easy 
receptacle  for  the  lodgment  of  foreign 


144  ^be  Bvolutlon  of  /Ran. 

bodies  such  as  fruit-stones,  which  set 
up  inflammation  and  in  various  ways 
cause  death.  In  man  this  tube  is  the 
same  in  structure  as  the  rest  of  the  in- 
testine ;  it  is  "  covered  with  peritoneum, 
possesses  a  muscular  coat,  and  is  lined 
with  mucous  membrane.  In  the  early 
embryo  it  is  equal  in  calibre  to  the  rest 
of  the  bowel,  but  at  a  certain  date  it 
ceases  to  grow  pari  passu  with  it,  and 
at  the  time  of  birth  appears  as  a  thin 
tubular  appendix  to  the  caecum.  In 
the  newly-born  child  it  is  often  abso- 
lutely as  long  as  the  full-grown  man." 
This  precocity  is  always  an  indication 


Survivals  of  tbe  Bpc.  145 

that  the  part  was  of  great  importance 
to  the  ancestors  of  the  hnman  species. 

So  important  is  the  key  of  Evolution 
to  the  modern  pathologist  that  in  cases 
of  malformation  his  first  resort  is  always 
to  seek  an  explanation  in  lower  forms 
of  life.  It  is  found  that  conditions 
which  are  pathological  in  one  animal 
are  natural  in  others  of  a  lower  species. 
Take  for  instance  a  common  case  of 
malformation — club-foot.  All  children 
before  birth  display  the  most  ordinary 
form  of  this  deformity — that,  namely, 
where  the  sole  is  turned  inwards  and 
upwards  and  the  foot  is  raised — and  it 
is  only  gradually  that  the  foot   attains 


146  TLbe  iBvohxtion  of  /llban. 

the  normal  adult  position.  The  abnor- 
mal position,  abnormal  that  is  in  adult 
man,  is  the  normal  condition  of  things 
in  the  case  of  the  gorilla.  Club-foot, 
hence,  is  simply  gorilla-foot — a  case  of 
the  arrested  development  of  a  character 
which  apparently  came  along  the  line 
of  the  direct  Simian  stock. 

Take  away  the  theory  that  Man  has 
evolved  from  a  lower  animal  condition, 
and  there  is  no  explanation  whatever 
of  any  one  of  these  phenomena.  With 
such  facts  before  us,  it  is  mocking 
human  intelligence  to  assure  us  that 
Man  has  not  some  connection  with  the  , 
rest  of  the  animal  creation,  or  that  the 


Cbe  /IRissing  Xlnft.  147 

processes  of  his  development  stand  un- 
related to  the  other  ways  of  Nature. 
That  Providence,  in  making  a  new 
being,  should  deliberately  have  inserted 
these  eccentricities,  without  their  hav- 
ing any  real  connection  with  the  things 
they  so  well  imitate,  or  any  organic 
relation  with  the  rest  of  his  body,  is,  at 
least  with  our  present  knowledge,  simple 
irreverence. 


THE   MISSING   LINK. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  nevertheless, 
that  Man  is  descended  from  any  exist- 
ing ape.     The  anthropoid  apes  branched 


148  Zbc  Bvolutton  of  ^an. 

off  laterally  at  a  remote  period  from 
the  nearest  human  progenitors.  The 
challenge  to  produce  links  between  man 
and  the  living  man-like  apes  is  difficult 
to  take  seriously.  Should  any  one  so 
violate  the  first  principles  of  Evolution 
as  to  make  it,  it  is  only  to  be  said  that 
it  cannot  be  met.  An  anthropoid  ape 
could  as  little  develop  into  a  man  as 
could  a  man  pass  backwards  into  an  an- 
thropoid ape.  That  does  not,  however, 
affect  the  fact  of  the  kinship  that  exists 
between  them — a  kinship  so  marked 
that  the  anthropoids  are  more  like  Man 
in  several  prominent  anatomical  charac- 
ters than  they  are  to  the  next,  or  flat- 


^be  ffkiesinQ  Xlnft.  149 

nosed,  monkeys.  The  distance,  indeed, 
between  the  lower  and  the  higher  apes 
is  greater  than  between  the  higher  apes 
and  man. 

The  challenge,  however,  to  produce, 
not  missing  links  between  man  and  ape, 
but  between  man  and  cruder  man-like 
forms,  is  a  fair  one.  Eighteen  years  ago 
Dana  enunciated  this  challenge  in  em- 
phatic terms:  "No  remains  of  fossil 
man  bear  evidence  to  less  perfect  erect- 
ness  of  structure  than  in  civilized  man, 
or  to  any  nearer  approach  to  the  man 
ape  in  essential  characteristics — this  is 
the  more  extraordinary  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  from  the  lowest  limits  in  exist- 


150  ^be  Evolution  of  ^an. 

ing  man,  there  are  all  possible  grades 
up  to  the  highest ;  while  below  that 
level  there  is  an  abrupt  fall  to  the  ape 
level,  in  which  the  cubic  capacity  of  the 
brain  is  one-half  less.  If  the  links  ever 
existed  then  without  trace  is  so  ex- 
tremely improbable  that  it  may  be  pro- 
nounced impossible.  Until  some  are 
found,  science  cannot  assert  that  they 
ever  existed." 

Since  these  words  were  written  no 
conquest  either  in  the  field  of  palaeon- 
tology or  anthropology  has  revealed  any 
trace  of  the  existence  of  anthropithecus, 
or  ho7no  alahis^  or  the  hypothetical  ape- 
like man  who   led   up  to  Man.     Even 


Mr.  Huxley  admits  that  "the  fossil  re- 
mains of  man  hitherto  discovered  do 
not  seem  to  take  us  appreciably  nearer 
to  that  lower  pithecoid  form,  by  the 
modification  of  which  he  has  probably 
become  what  he  is,  and  that  it  is  an 
unsolved  problem  why  no  traces  of  the 
lower  line  of  man's  ancestors,  back  to 
the  remote  period  when  he  first  branched 
off  from  the  pithecoid  type,  have  been 
discovered. ' '  Should  any  one,  therefore, 
incline  to  set  off  this  negative  proof 
against  all  the  positive  proof  of  embry- 
ology and  anatomy,  so  far  as  facts  are 
concerned,  he  is  at  full  liberty  to  do  so. 


153  TLbe  Bvolution  ot  /Bban. 

But  in  assuming  such  a  position,  one  or 
two  facts  must  be  held  in  view. 

In  the  first  place  one  must  cite,  as 
always  when  such  objections  are  urged, 
the  imperfection  of  the  geological 
record.  Until  the  earth's  crust,  and 
even  some  parts  of  the  sea  bottom,  have 
yielded  up  all  the  fossils  they  contain, 
this  objection  can  only  be  provisional. 
In  the  second  place  the  later  discoveries 
of  palaeontology  have  met  the  demand 
for  missing  links  in  several  most  striking 
and  unexpected  cases.  For  some  time 
after  the  call  for  an  actual  sign  was 
made — the  call  to  science  to  produce  the 
actual  stages  in  the  transmission  of  any 


^be  hissing  Xlnft.  153 

given  species — there  was  no  response. 
Palaeontology  seemed  baffled.  Then 
came  the  magnificent  demonstration 
from  Yale  of  the  Evolntion  of  the  Horse, 
and  from  Steinheim  of  the  transmuta- 
tion of  Planorbis — cases  where  the  miss- 
ing links  have  come  in  one  after  another, 
and  in  series  so  perfect  that  the  evidence 
for  the  evolution  of  these  forms  is 
irresistible.  "On  the  evidence  of  pa- 
laeontology," says  the  "Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,"  "the  Evolution  of  many 
existing  forms  of  animal  life  from  their 
predecessors  is  no  longer  an  hypothesis, 
but  a  historical  fact." 

Should  neither  of  these  considerations 


154  Zbc  Evolution  of  /Bban. 

weigh  in  the  case  of  Man,  there  remains 
one  other.  It  may  be  essential  to  the 
Darwinian  theory  of  Evolution  that 
minutely  graded  links  should  at  one 
time  have  existed  between  all  forms  of 
animals,  but  it  is  not  essential  to  the 
general  theory  of  Evolution.  It  is  the 
belief  of  many  evolutionists  that  advance 
does  not  proceed  by  microscopic  changes, 
but  that  Nature,  on  the  contrary,  some- 
times makes  sudden  leaps.  As  every 
one  knows,  this  is  Wallace's  view,  but 
what  is  of  more  significance  in  the  im- 
mediate connection  is  that  it  is  the 
opinion  of  Mr.  Huxley.  "Mr.  Darwin's 
position,"  he  says,   "might,  we  think, 


©tbcr  iBvlbcnce,  155 

have  been  even  stronger  than  it  is  if  he 
had  not  embarrassed  himself  with  the 
aphorism,  Natiira  non  facit  saltum. 
We  believe,  as  we  have  said  above,  that 
Nature  does  make  jumps." 


OTHER  EVIDENCE. 

Were  it  the  present  object  to  complete 
a  proof  of  the  descent  of  Man,  one 
might  go  on  to  select  from  other  depart- 
ments of  science  evidence  equally  large 
and  not  less  striking.  Turn  the  side  of 
palaeontology,  it  might  be  shown  that 
Man  appears  in  the  earth  like  any  other 
fossil,   and   in   the  exact   place   where 


156  XLbc  lEvolution  of  /Dban. 

science  would  expect  to  find  him. 
When  born,  he  is  ushered  into  life  like 
any  other  animal,  he  is  subject  to  the 
same  diseases,  he  yields  to  the  same 
treatment.  When  fully  grown,  there 
is  almost  nothing  in  his  anatomy  to 
distinguish  him  from  his  nearest  allies 
among  other  animals.  Almost  bone  for 
bone,  nerve  for  nei-ve,  muscle  for 
muscle,  he  is  the  same.  But  the  im- 
mediate purpose  is  not  to  accumulate  a 
proof.  It  is  to  outline  the  story  and 
extract  its  meaning.  And  these  curious 
facts  about  vestigial  organs  are  cited  for 
a  deeper  purpose  than  to  produce  con- 
nection on  a  point  which,  after  all,  is 


XLbc  iproblem  of  BvtU  157 

of  importance  only  in  its  higher  impli- 
cations. 


THE  PROBLEM   OF  EVIL. 

The  anatomist  and  pathologist  are 
not  the  only  people  who  discover  traces 
of  an  animal  past  in  Man.  There  is  a 
further  class  of  scientific  experts,  in  as 
true  a  sense  students  of  nature,  whose 
work  is  the  dissection  of  the  soul. 
Within  Man's  being  they  have  detected 
vestiges,  not  greater  but  larger  in  num- 
bers, not  less  but  more  distinct,  of  an 
animal's  moods,  proclivities,  and  pas- 
sions.    These  men  have  not  invented 


158  Zbc  lEvolutfon  of  ^an. 

these  remains,  these  abnormalities,  these 
malformations  of  the  moral  nature. 
They  are  as  real  as  the  gill-slits  and  the 
cervical  ear,  infinitely  more  real,  be- 
cause their  muscles  are  not  yet  atro- 
phied. 

To  say  that  theology  invented  sin  is 
as  unintelligent  a  charge  as  to  say  that 
biology  invented  vestigial  structures. 

It  is  an  extraordinary  circumstance 
that  scientific  men  should  so  often  be 
blind  to  these  facts,  should  treat  their 
fellow-evolutionists  in  the  moral  region 
with  so  much  contempt,  should  regard 
them  as  if  they  were  merely  analyzing 
moonshine,  and  spending  their  lives  iu 


Zbe  problem  of  Bvd.  159 

fighting  shadows.  Theology,  let  it  be 
said  once  more,  does  not  make  the 
problem  of  evil  ;  it  is  its  efibrts  to  solve 
it  that  have  led  men  to  associate  it  with 
that  science.  And  beside  the  life  of  a 
man  who  is  striving  to  eradicate  the 
animal  in  human  nature,  the  career  of 
the  most  brilliant  investigator  who  con- 
fines himself  to  himself  and  to  the 
natural  plane  is  a  waste  and  a  denial  of 
evolution. 

If  Man  inherits  the  gill-slits  of  a 
shark,  is  it  unscientific  to  expect  that  he 
will  also  inherit  the  spirit  of  a  shark  ? 
And  when  he  plays  the  shark  in  busi- 
ness, is  the  phenomenon  less  worthy  of 


160  XLbc  Bvolutlon  of  jflBan. 

investigation  ?  If  the  first  excite  won- 
der, is  it  absurd  that  the  last  should  ex- 
cite pity,  or  call  forth  some  attempt  to 
counteract  it?  If  Man  inherits  the 
head  of  a  tiger  or  a  bear,  shall  not 
some  blood  of  the  tiger  or  the  bear  run 
in  his  veins?  and  if  his  temptation  is 
to  let  these  loose  in  his  family  life,  are 
the  means  for  helping  him  to  check  it 
a  thing  for  laughter?  Whatever  other 
content  the  theologian  may  read  into 
the  word  evil,  this  much  at  least  it  con- 
tains ;  this  much  the  evolutionist  on 
his  own  principles  must  admit  ;  this 
much  the  scientific  man  is  as  much  re- 
sponsible  for    acknowledging   and    at- 


Cbe  iproblem  of  JEvll.  161 

tempting  to  deal  with  as  any  other  phe- 
nomenon in  nature  which  he  sees  to  be 
injurious  to  the  life  and  welfare  of  his 
fellow-beings. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  his  ani- 
mal past  has  left  nothing  more  in  man 
than  material  relics.  A  father  leaves 
his  son  his  money,  his  home,  his  busi- 
ness, his  material  likeness,  it  may  be, 
and  physical  constitution.  But  these 
are  nothing.  His  chief  legacy  is  his 
mind  and  soul.  What  mind  and  soul, 
what  disposition  and  nature  an  animal 
has,  that  also  it  has  partly  left  in  Man. 
An  attempt   has   been   made   by  some 

evolutionists  to  throw  light  on  the  ques- 
II 


162  '^be  Evolution  of  ^an. 

tion  of  sin — treating  it  as  a  "vestigial 
structure"  or  residuum  of  the  animal, 
with  the  difference  that  it  still  func- 
tioned more  than  anything  else  beside. 
This,  valuable  up  to  a  point,  was  pre- 
carious except  to  distinctly  theistic 
forms  of  evolution. 

The  problem  really  is,  not  how  sin 
came  into  the  world,  but  how  to  get  it 
out.  If  science  would  come  to  the 
rescue  here,  its  contribution  would  be 
worth  having.  But  if  science  can  even 
in  part  diagnose  the  disease,  that  of  it- 
self is  a  step  toward  removing  it.  If 
we  knew  how  vestiges  disappeared  in 
the  animal  world,  that  knowledsfe  mieht 


Cbc  iproblcm  of  Bvll.  163 

accelerate  the  disappearance  of  evil. 
Some  of  the  attempts  to  stop  evil  iu  the 
world  are  as  unwise  and  as  futile  as 
were  some  of  the  attempts  to  eradicate 
cholera  or  cancer.  Scientific  precision 
is  especially  needed  in  the  departments 
of  applied  theology,  sociology,  and  even 
political  economy.  Man's  present  am- 
phibious life  cannot  be  final.  As  Vic- 
tor Hugo  said  :  "I  am  the  tadpole  of 
an  archangel." 


^bc  Struggle  for  Xtfe. 


Z\)c  QtvwQQlc  for  %\tc. 

The  first  practical  problem  in  the 
Ascent  of  Man  was  to  get  him  started 
on  his  upward  path.  It  was  not  enough 
for  Nature  to  equip  him  with  a  body,  to 
plant  his  foot  on  the  lowest  rung  of  the 
ladder.  She  must  introduce  into  her 
economy  some  great  principle  which 
shall  secure,  not  for  him  alone,  but  for 
every  living  thing,  that  they  shall  work 
upward  toward  the  top.  The  inertia  of 
things  is  such  that  without  compulsion 

(1G9) 


170  Zbc  Evolution  of  flBan. 

they  will  never  move.  And  so  admir- 
ably has  this  compulsion  been  applied 
that  its  forces  are  hidden  in  the  very 
nature  of  life  itself — the  very  act  of 
living  contains  within  it  a  law  of 
progress.  An  animal  cannot  be  with- 
out becoming. 

One  of  the  great  principles  into  the 
hands  of  which  this  mighty  charge  was 
given  is  the  Struggle  for  Life.  It  is 
one  of  the  chief  keys  for  unlocking  the 
mystery  of  Man's  Ascent,  and  so  im- 
portant in  all  development,  that  Mr. 
Darwin  gives  it  the  supreme  rank 
among  the  factors  in*  Evolution. 

Matthew    Arnold     describes    a    bird 


Zbe  Struflflle  tor  Xite.  i7l 

**deepiu  its  unknown  day's  employ." 
But,  peace  to  the  poet,  there  is  no 
doubt  as  to  its  day's  employ.  The  bird 
is  struggling  to  get  a  living.  It  awoke 
at  daybreak,  and  set  out  to  catch  the 
early  worm.  But  another  bird  was 
awake  before  it,  or  perhaps  the  early 
worm,  in  its  own  struggle  for  life,  had 
discreetly  disappeared.  With  fifty  other 
breakfastless  birds  it  had  to  bide  its 
time,  to  scour  the  country,  to  prospect 
the  trees,  the  grass,  the  ground,  to  lie 
in  ambush,  to  attack  and  be  defeated,  to 
hope  and  be  forestalled.  At  every  meal 
the  same  programme  is  gone  through, 
and  every  day,  except  that  as  the  sea- 


1T2  Zbc  Bvolution  of  jfUban. 

sons  change,  it  has  to  take  wing  and  fly 
for  hundreds  and  thousands  of  miles  to 
find  a  new  hunting-ground.  This  is 
how  birds  live,  and  this  is  how  birds 
are  made.  They  are  the  children  of 
Struggle.  Beak  and  limb,  claw  and 
wing,  shape,  strength,  color,  down  to 
the  last  detail,  birds  and  all  living 
things  are  the  expressions  of  their  mode 
of  life. 

Unfortunately  this  principle  has  been 
greatly  perverted.  The  emphasis  has 
been  placed  on  Struggle  instead  of  upon 
Life,  and  Nature  held  up  to  us  as  a  vast 
murderous  machine  for  the  annihilation 
of  the  majority  and  the  survival  of  the 


Zbe  Struflflle  for  %iU.  173 

few.  But  the  struggle  for  life,  in  the 
first  instance,  is  simply  living  ;  at  the 
best  it  is  living  under  a  normal  maxi- 
mum of  pressure  ;  at  the  worst,  at  an 
abnormal  maximum.  The  universe  has 
to  be  so  ordered  that  that  which  Man 
would  not  have  done  alone  he  should 
be  compelled  to  do.  In  other  words,  it 
was  necessary  to  introduce  into  Nature, 
and  into  Human  Nature,  some  such 
principle  as  the  Struggle  for  Life.  The 
first  law  of  evolution,  in  short,  is  the 
first  law  of  motion.  "Everybody  con- 
tinues in  a  state  of  rest,  or  of  uniform 
motion  in  a  straight  line,  unless  he  is 
compelled  by  impressed  forces  to  change 


174  XLbe  Bvolutton  of  /iBan. 

that  state."  Nature  supplied  mankind 
with  the  impressed  forces,  with  some- 
thing which  it  was  compelled  to  respond 
to.  Without  that,  it  would  have  con- 
tinued forever  as  it  began. 

The  difference  between  a  moving 
things  however,  and  a  moving  man^  is 
that  while  the  first  is  in  itself  unchanged 
by  being  moved,  the  sensitive  and 
mobile  body  of  the  last  is  distinctly 
affected  by  the  process.  Man's  body  is 
a  quivering  mass  of  protoplasm,  that 
mysterious  vital  clay  of  which  all  his 
parts  are  made.  This  protoplasm  is  one 
of  the  most  complex  substances  in 
Nature,  and  unstable  almost  to  explo- 


Zbe  Strugale  tor  Xttc.  its 

siveness.  Its  molecules  are  built  up 
like  houses  made  of  cards,  which  will 
tumble  down  at  a  touch.  Every  mo- 
ment it  is  on  the  brink  of  changing  into 
something  else  ;  it  trembles  on  the  verge 
of  a  physiological  collapse.  Now  the 
remarkable  thing  is  that  when  proto- 
plasm collapses,  when  the  card  house 
tumbles  down,  it  does  not  tumble  down 
into  ruins.  It  tumbles  down  into  cells, 
and  cell-walls,  and  tissues,  and  the 
formed  parts  of  the  body.  Muscle, 
bone,  nerve,  all  the  solid  structures  of 
the  body,  are  tumbled-down  protoplasm ; 
have  all  once  been  protoplasm.  The 
business  of  protoplasm    is    to   tumble 


176  Zbe  Evolution  of  /llban. 

down  into  these  ;  and,  when  these  are 
made,  to  keep  on  repairing  their  waste, 
to  enlarge  them,  and  to  add  new  things 
to  them. 

Now  the  thing  that  pulls  the  trigger, 
the  touch  that  sets  all  the  cards  tum- 
bling, comes  from  the  world  around  us. 
A  whiff  of  cold  air,  a  pressure  of  some- 
thing hard,  some  strain  or  friction,  these 
call  for  adaptive  changes  in  the  body. 
Such  is  the  nature  of  the  body  in 
man. 

A  baby,  for  instance,  is  born  without 
any  teeth.  Read  in  the  light  of  Em- 
bryology, this  means  that  the  ancient 
stock  from  which  man  came   had   soft 


XLbc  Sttuggle  tor  ILife.  177 

and  toothless  gums.  But  this  entrance 
to  the  mouth  in  the  early  days  was  a 
much-used  gateway.  It  bore  the  brunt 
of  all  the  traffic  of  the  food,  all  the 
strains  and  pressures  and  friction  due 
to  the  passing  in  of  coarse  herbs  and 
hard  nuts  and  tough  flesh.  The  harder 
the  food,  the  greater  would  be  the  strain. 
The  effect  of  these  pressures  upon  the 
delicate  cells  of  the  gums  is  to  harden 
them,  just  as  corns  are  produced  by 
pressure  or  callosities  on  the  hands  of  a 
mechanic.  The  response  in  increased 
density  of  tissue  is  in  proportion  to  the 
strain  and  shock  applied,  and  by  the 
steady  accumulation  of  small  gains,  the 


178  XLbc  lEvoIutfon  of  /Bban. 

gums  become  more  and  more  callous, 
and  teeth — which  are  anatomically  sim- 
ply developments  from  the  skin — are 
gradually  established.  Bone  again  is 
associated  with  the  stimulus  of  the 
strain  of  muscular  contraction  ;  and  the 
entire  circulatory  system  is  a  response 
to  the  pressure  of  the  moving  current 
of  the  blood. 

What  is  true  of  man's  bodily  organi- 
zation is  true  of  his  life  and  habit  as  a 
whole.  In  the  discharge  of  the  few  and 
simple  activities  of  the  day's  routine,  and 
iiuder  the  stimulus  of  competition  with 
others  like  himself,  man  passes  on  to 
even  higher  and  higher  improvements. 


XLbe  Struflflle  tor  Xifc.  179 

I  can  only  dwell  hastily  on  the 
struggle  for  life  in  the  primitive  savage, 
on  his  first  tentative  efforts  to  adjust 
himself  to  the  physical  conditions  that 
surround  him,  on  his  assumption  of  the 
erect  position,  on  his  invention  of 
weapons.  His  next  stimulus  came  from 
his  becoming  a  member  of  a  tribe — 
necessarily  in  those  days  a  fighting 
tribe.  In  the  tribal  struggle  for  life 
many  new  elements  of  character,  or  the 
germs  of  such  elements,  were  introduced 
into  his  nature.  Before  being  aggregated 
into  a  tribe  the  savage  was  a  purely 
selfish  being.  Afterwards  he  had  to 
divide  his  interests.     Selfishness  slowly 


180  zbc  Bvolutlon  ot  ^an. 

gave  place  to  altruism.  In  battle  the 
individual  is  lost  sight  of.  It  is  the 
tribe  which  lives.  Each  victory  in- 
creases the  sense  of  unity,  creates  a 
feeling  of  patriotism,  demonstrates  that 
conjoint  action  is  a  paying  thing  in  the 
struggle  for  life.  Emergencies  called 
out  acts  of  self-sacrifice.  By-and-by  to 
the  primary  motive  of  joint  action  there 
was  added  another.  One  of  the  earliest 
emotions  in  the  savage  is  love  of  esteem. 
Hence  a  premium  upon  any  action 
specially  serviceable  to  the  tribe.  Hence 
special  serviceableness  would  tend  to 
become  a  definite  ambition.  The  tribe 
which  was   most   united,    most  heroic. 


XLbc  Strugfllc  tor  life.  181 

whose  individuals  were  most  disinter- 
ested, most  ready  to  make  brilliant  sac- 
rifices, would  in  the  long  run  conquer 
tribes  manifesting  these  qualities  less. 
In  time,  nations  with  the  rudiments  of 
many  such  high  qualities — forced  upon 
them  at  the  bayonet's  point — would  be 
organized. 

This  process  is  still  going  on.  War 
was  simply  the  modern  form  of  the 
struggle  for  life.  As  the  higher  quali- 
ties became  more  pronounced  and  their 
exercise  gave  more  satisfaction,  the 
struggle  passed  into  more  refined  forms. 
One  of  these  was  the  industrial  struggle. 
Another  was  the  moral  struggle.     The 


183  Zbe  Bvolution  of  /iRan. 

former  of  these  must  give  place  to  the 
latter.  The  animal  struggle  for  life 
must  pass  away.  And  under  the  stimu- 
lus of  ideals  man  will  continually  press 
upwards,  and  find  his  further  evolution 
in  forms  of  moral,  social,  and  spiritual 
antagonism.  That  a  price  in  pain  has 
been  paid  for  the  evolution  of  the  world 
is  certain.  But  Nature  might  safely  be 
left  to  look  after  her  own  ethic.  It  is 
a  principle  in  the  study  of  history  to 
suspend  judgment  both  as  to  the  mean- 
ing and  the  value  of  a  policy  until  the 
chain  of  sequences  it  set  in  motion 
should  be  worked  out  to  their  last  fulfil- 
ment.    When  the  full  tale  is  told  it  will 


Zbe  Struggle  for  %ite,  183 

be  time  to  pass  judgment  on  its  moral 
value.  Men  forget  when  they  denounce 
the  struggle  for  life  that  it  is  to  be  judged 
not  only  on  the  ground  of  sentiment, 
but  of  reason.  The  object  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  is  to  produce  fitness. 
If  this  is  going  to  be  a  good  world,  the 
elimination  or  the  transformation  of  the 
bad  is  the  one  thing  required.  To 
make  a  fit  world,  the  unfit  at  ever}'  stage 
must  pass  away.  And  if  any  self-acting 
law  can  bring  this  about,  even  if  its 
bearing  in  individual  cases  seemed  un- 
just or  harsh,  its  necessity  for  the  world 
as  a  whole  is  vindicated.  For  nature  in 
her  wisdom  has  a  twofold  object.     The 


184  ^be  Evolution  ot  /iRan. 

first  and  most  important  is  the  preserva- 
tion and  perfection  of  the  species.  The 
second  is  the  comfort  of  the  individual 
during  this  evolution.  At  times  she  is 
even  willing  to  retard  progress  for  the 
sake  of  the  individual  comfort  of  a 
whole  generation.  But  she  will  ruth- 
lessly sacrifice  the  individual  who  is  in  a 
hopeless  minority  whenever  his  interests 
conflict  with  the  interests  of  the  race. 


tTbe  jevolutton  of  flDtn^, 


Zbc  jevolutton  of  flDinb. 

The  Evolution  of  Mind  is  an  open 

question.     As  to  the  nature  of  mental 

faculty,   science   is   absolutely   without 

light.       The    passage    from    molecular 

movement  to  states  of  consciousness  is 

unthinkable  ;  and  the  origin  of  mind  as 

great  a  mystery  as  the   origin  of  life. 

Of  that  evidence  there  are  mainly  four 

sources — the  mind  of  a  child,  the  mind 

of  the  lower  animals,   anthropological 

collections,   and   the   mental   states   of 

(189) 


100  Zbe  Evolution  of  /iRan. 

savages.  With  regard  to  the  first,  if 
the  mind  of  the  infant  had  been  evolved, 
and  that  not  from  primeval  man,  but 
from  some  more  ancient  animal,  it 
could  not  to  more  perfection  have  simu- 
lated the  appearance  of  having  so  come. 
The  mind  of  a  child  not  only  grows, 
but  grows  in  a  certain  order  ;  and  the 
astonishing  fact  about  that  order  is  that 
it  is  ihe  probable  order  of  evolution  of 
mental  facility  as  a  whole.  Where 
science  gets  that  probable  order  will  be 
referred  to  by-and-by.  Meantime,  note 
the  fact  that  not  only  in  the  manner, 
but  in  the  order  of  its  development,  the 
human  mind  simulates  a  production  of 


Zbe  Evolution  ot  /!RinO.  191 

evolution.  The  mind  of  a  cliild,  in 
short,  is  to  be  treated  as  an  unfolding 
embryo  ;  and  just  as  the  embryo  of  the 
body  recapitulates  the  long  life-history 
of  all  the  bodies  that  led  up  to  it,  so 
this  subtler  embryo  in  running  its 
course  through  the  swift  years  of  early 
infancy  runs  up  the  psychic  scale 
through  which,  as  evidence  from  an- 
other field  will  show,  mind  probably 
evolved.  We  have  seen  also  that  in 
the  case  of  the  body,  each  step  of 
progress  in  the  embryo  has  its  equiva- 
lent either  in  the  bodies  or  in  the  em- 
bryos of  lower  forms  of  life.  Now  each 
phase   of    mental    development   in    the 


192  ^be  ^Evolution  of  /Dban. 

child  is  also  permanently  represented  by 
the  brain  of  some  species  among  the 
lower  animals  or  by  the  mind  of  some 
existing  savages. 

With  reference  to  Mind  in  the  lower 
animals,  it  is  mainly  to  Mr.  Romanes 
that  we  owe  the  working  out  of  the 
evidence  in  this  connection  ;  and  even 
though  his  researches  be  taken  as  little 
more  than  a  preliminary  exploration, 
their  general  results  are  striking.  Real- 
izing that  the  most  scientific  way  to 
discover  whether  there  are  any  affinities 
between  Mind  in  Animals  and  Mind  in 
Man  is  to  compare  the  one  with  the 
other,  he  began  a  laborious  study  of  the 


Zbc  Evolution  ot  /nblnO.  193 

animal  world.  That  abundant  traces 
of  Mind  were  found  in  the  lower  ani- 
mals goes  without  saying.  But  the 
range  of  mental  phenomena  discovered 
there  may  certainly  excite  surprise. 
Thus  to  consider  only  one  set  of  phe- 
nomena— that  of  the  emotions — all  the 
following  products  of  emotional  devel- 
opment are  represented  at  one  stage  or 
another  of  animal  life  :  Fear,  Surprise, 
Affection,  Pugnacity,  Curiosity,  Jeal- 
ousy, Anger,  Play,  Sympathy,  Emu- 
lation, Pride,  Resentment,  Sense  of  the 
Beautiful,  Grief,  Hate,  Cruelty,  Benev- 
olence, Revenge,  Rage,  Shame,  Re- 
13 


194  ^be  Evolution  of  /llban. 

gret,  Deceitfuluess,  Sense  of  tlie  Ludi- 
crous. 

But  this  list  is  something  more  than 
a  bare  catalogue  of  what  human  emo- 
tions exist  in  the  animal  world.  It  is 
an  arranged  catalogue,  a  more  or  less 
definite  psychological  scale.  These 
emotions  did  not  only  appear  in  animals 
but  they  appeared  in  this  order.  Now 
to  find  out  order  in  evolution  is  of  first 
importance.  For  order  of  events  is 
history,  and  Evolution  is  history. 

This  history  of  course  has  no  dates. 
It  uses  for  calendar  the  table  of  the  suc- 
cession of  life  on  the  earth.  In  creat- 
ures very  far  down  the  scale  of  life — 


Zbc  JEvolution  of  /nbiiiD.  195 

the  Annelids — Mr.  Romanes  distin- 
guished what  appeared  to  him  to  be  one 
of  the  earliest  emotions — Fear.  Some- 
what higher  up,  among  the  Insects,  he 
met  with  the  Social  Feelings,  as  well 
as  Industry^,  Pugnacity,  and  Curiosity. 
Jealousy  seems  to  have  been  born  into 
the  world  with  Fishes  ;  Sympathy  with 
Birds.  The  Carnivora  are  responsible 
for  Cruelty,  Hate,  and  Grief ;  the  An- 
thropoid Apes  for  Remorse,  Shame,  the 
Sense  of  the  Ludicrous  and  Deceit. 

Now  when  we  compare  this  table 
with  a  similar  table  compiled  from  a 
careful  study  of  the  emotional  states  in 
a  little  child,  two  striking  facts  appear. 


196  Zbc  ^Evolution  of  ^an. 

lu  the  first  place,  there  are  almost  no 
emotions  in  the  child  which  are  not 
here — this  list,  in  short,  practically  ex- 
hausts the  list  of  human  emotions. 
With  the  exception  of  the  religious 
feelings,  the  moral  sense,  and  the  per- 
ception of  the  sublime,  there  is  nothing 
found,  even  in  adult  Man,  which  is  not 
represented  with  more  or  less  vividness 
in  the  Animal  Kingdom.  But  this  is 
not  all.  These  emotions,  as  already 
hinted,  appear  in  the  mind  of  the  grow- 
ing child  m  the  same  order  as  they  ap- 
pear on  the  anitnal scale.  At  three  weeks, 
for  instance.  Fear  is  perceptibly  mani- 
fest in  a  little  child.     When  it  is  seven 


Zbe  Evolution  of  /llblnD.  197 

weeks  old  the  Social  affections  dawn 
At  twelve  weeks  emerges  Jealousy,  with 
its  companion  Auger.  Sympathy  ap- 
pears after  five  months  ;  Pride,  Resent- 
ment, Love  of  Ornament  after  eight ; 
Shame,  Remorse,  and  Sense  of  the 
Ludicrous  after  fifteen.  These  dates,  of 
course,  do  not  indicate  in  any  mechani- 
cal way  the  birthdays  of  evolution  ;  they 
represent  rather  stages  in  an  infinitely 
gentle  mental  ascent,  stages  nevertheless 
so  marked  that  we  are  able  to  give  them 
names,  and  use  them  as  landmarks  in 
psychogenesis.  Yet  taken  even  as  rep- 
resenting a  rough  order,  it  is  a  circum- 
stance to  which  too  much  significance 


198  Zbe  Evolution  of  /IRan. 

cannot  be  attached — that  the  tree  of 
mind  as  we  know  it  in  Lower  Nature, 
and  the  tree  of  mind  as  we  know  it  in 
a  little  child  should  be  the  same  tree, 
starting  its  roots  at  the  same  place,  and 
though  by  no  means  ending  its  branches 
at  the  same  level,  at  least  growing  them 
so  far  in  a  parallel  direction. 

If  we  turn  from  emotional  to  intellec- 
tual development,  the  parallel  line, 
though  much  more  faint,  is  at  least 
shadowed.  Again  we  find  a  list  of  in- 
tellectual products  common  to  both 
Animal  and  Man,  and  again  an  approxi- 
mate order  common  to  both.  It  is  true 
Man's  development  beyond  the  highest 


tlbc  Bvolutfon  ot  /IBfnO.  199 

point  attained  by  any  animal  in  the 
region  of  the  intellect  is  all  but  infinite. 
Of  rational  thought  he  has  the  whole 
monopoly.  Wherever  the  roots  of  mind 
be,  there  is  no  uncertainty  as  to  where, 
and  where  exclusively,  the  higher 
branches  are.  But  grant  that  the 
mental  faculties  of  Man  and  Animal 
part  company  at  a  point,  there  remains 
to  consider  the  vast  distance — in  the 
case  of  the  emotions  almost  the  whole 
distance — where  they  run  parallel  with 
one  another.  Why  should  the  Mind 
thus  recapitulate  in  its  development  the 
psychic  life  of  animals  unless  some  vital 
link    connected    them?      Comparative 


200  Zbe  iBvolution  of  /Iftan. 

Psychology  is  not  so  advanced  a  science 
as  Comparative  Embryology;  yet  no  one 
who  has  felt  the  force  of  the  recapitula- 
tion argument  for  the  evolution  of  bodily 
function,  even  making  all  allowances  for 
the  differences  of  the  things  compared, 
will  deny  some  weight  to  the  corre- 
sponding argument  for  the  evolution  of 
Mind. 

A  singular  complement  to  this  argu- 
ment has  been  suggested  recently — 
though  as  yet  only  in  the  form  of  the 
dimmest  hint  from  the  side  of  Mental 
Pathology.  When  the  Mind  is  affected 
by  certain  diseases,  its  progress  down- 
ward can  often  be  followed  step  by  step. 


Zbc  revolution  ot  /BbtnO.  201 

It  does  not  tumble  down  in  a  moment 
into  chaos,  like  a  house  of  cards,  but  in 
a  definite  order,  stone  by  stone,  or 
story  by  story.  Now  the  striking  thing 
about  that  order  is,  that  it  is  the 
probable  order  in  which  the  building 
has  gone  up.  The  order  of  descent,  in 
short,  is  the  inverse  of  the  order  of 
ascent.  The  first  faculty  to  go,  in  many 
cases  of  insanity,  is  the  last  faculty 
which  arrived  ;  the  next  faculty  is 
aflfected  next  ;  the  whole  spring  uncoil- 
ing as  it  were  in  the  order  and  direc- 
tion in  which,  presumably,  it  had  been 
wound  up. 

That  the  highest  part  of  Man  should 


203  ttbc  Evolution  of  luktin. 

totter  first  is  what,  on  the  theory  of 
mental  evolution,  one  would  already 
have  expected.  The  highest  part  is  the 
last  added  part,  and  the  latest  added 
part  is  the  least  secured  part.  As  the 
last  arrival,  it  is  not  yet  at  home  ;  it  has 
not  had  time  to  get  lastingly  imbedded 
in  the  brain  ;  the  competition  of  older 
faculties  is  against  it  ;  the  hold  of  the 
will  upon  it  is  slight  and  fitful  ;  its 
tenure  as  a  tenant  is  precarious  and 
often  threatened.  Among  the  older 
and  more  permanent  residents  therefore 
it  has  little  chance.  Hence,  if  anything 
goes  wrong,  as  the  last  added,  the  most 
compleXj  the  least  automatic  of  all  the 


XLbc  Evolution  of  ifRinO.  203 

functions,  it  is  the  first  to  suffer.  We 
are  but  too  familiar  with  cases  where 
men  of  lofty  intellect  and  women  of 
purest  mind,  seized  in  the  awful  grasp 
of  madness,  are  transformed  in  a  few 
brief  months  into  beings  worse  than 
brutes.  How  are  we  to  account,  on  any 
other  principle  than  this,  for  that  most 
shocking  of  all  catastrophes,  the  sudden 
and  total  break  up,  the  devolution  of  a 
saint? 

It  is  a  favorite  expedient  with  some 
evolutionists  to  assert  that  at  this  point 
some  special  interposition  of  a  creative 
hand  must  have  taken  place.  This  is 
Mr.  Wallace's  opinion,  and  it  is  that  of 


204  XTbe  Evolutfon  of  /iBan. 

many  theologians.  It  is  a  perfectly 
scientific  hypothesis,  for  science  has  no 
account  whatever  of  the  origin  of  Mind 
except  that  it  be  a  Divine  in-breathiug. 
But  there  seems  no  necessity  to  believe 
that  that  which  we  describe  by  the 
metaphor  in-breathing  was  a  sudden 
and  unrelated  act.  While  there  is  only 
one  theory  of  origins  in  the  field  there 
is  only  one  theory  of  process  in  the  field, 
and  that  is  evolution.  And  while  there 
is  nothing  against  a  per-saltiim  evolu- 
tion in  the  case  of  Mind,  one  gains 
nothing  for  theism  by  insisting  on  it  too 
rigidly.  Those  who  yield  to  the  ten- 
dency to  reserve  a  point  here  and  there 


Cbc  Bvolutlon  of  ^iiiD.  205 

for  special  Divine  interposition  are 
scarcely  aware  that  this  virtually  ex- 
cludes God  from  the  rest  of  the  process. 

If  God  appears  periodically,  He  dis- 
appears periodically.  If  He  comes  upon 
the  scene  at  special  crises,  He  is  absent 
from  the  scene  in  the  interval.  Whether 
is  all-God,  or  occasional-God,  the  nobler 
theory  ?  And  as  to  facts,  the  daily 
miracle  of  a  flower,  the  upholding  and  . 
sustaining  of  all  living  things,  needs 
God  as  much  as  the  creation  of  matter. 

If  by  the  accumulation  of  irresistible 
evidence  we  are  driven  to  accept  Evo- 
lution as  God's  method  in  creation,  it  is 
a  mistaken  policy  to  glory  in  what  it 


206  Zbc  Evolution  of  /Bban. 

cannot  account  for.  The  reason  why 
some  men  grudge  Evolution,  grudge 
each  of  its  fresh  claims  to  show  how 
things  have  been  made,  seems  simply  to 
be  the  fear  that  if  we  discover  how  they 
are  made  we  minimize  their  divinity. 
That  is  to  say,  when  things  are  known, 
they  are  human,  natural,  on  man's  level ; 
and  these  men  want  something  unknown, 
in  order  to  call  it  divine,  as  if  our  ignor- 
ance of  a  thing  were  the  stamp  of  its 
divinity.  If  God  is  only  to  be  left  to  the 
gaps  in  our  knowledge,  what  is  to  hap- 
pen when  these  gaps  are  filled  up  ? 

A  miracle  is  not  "something  quick." 
It  may  be  that  on  the  physical  side  it  is 


XLbc  Evolution  of  /iRInO.  207 

a  more  or  less  clear  or  a  more  or  less 
dark  chain  of  causes  and  effects.  It 
may  be  that  the  doing  of  it  may  come 
to  seem  to  us  no  miracle.  Nevertheless 
it  is  a  miracle  because  it  has  been  done. 


XTbe  levolution  of  XanguaGC, 


^be  jevolution  of  Xanouaoe, 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  gaps  in 
Nature  is  between  the  brain  of  Man 
and  that  of  his  nearest  ally  among  the 
lower  animals.  Mind  burst  out  in  an 
almost  sudden  eflflorescence.  When 
the  question  comes  to  be  asked,  What 
brought  about  this  sudden  rise  in  in- 
telligence ?  there  is  a  wonderful  unan- 
imity among  men  of  science  as  to  the 
answer.  It  came  about  in  connection 
with  the  acquisition  by  man  of  the  power 

(213) 


214  Cbc  Evolution  of  ^an. 

to  express  his  intelligence,  that  is,  to 
Speak.  The  condition  of  all  growth  is 
exercise,  and  till  man  could  find  a 
further  field  and  a  larger  opportunity 
to  work  what  little  brains  he  had,  he 
had  little  chance  of  gettino^  more.  Now 
speech  gave  him  this  opportunity,  and 
in  other  more  important  ways  supplied 
the  conditions  of  mental  development. 

It  is  a  growing  belief  indeed  that  to 
the  invention  of  language  we  almost 
owe  the  Evolution  of  Mind.  It  at 
least  gave  an  impetus  to  the  progress 
of  the  human  species  which  nothing  else 
did  or  could  have  done. 

Evolution,  up  to  this  time,  had  only 


Zbe  Bvolution  of  language.       315 

one  way  of  banking  the  gains  it  won — 
heredity.  To  hand  on  any  improve- 
ment physically  was  a  slow  and  preca- 
rious work.  If  the  gain  was  small,  it 
would  be  so  small  in  the  heir  as  to  be  of 
little  account  in  giving  it  an  advantage 
in  the  struggle  for  life  ;  if  it  was  great, 
it  might  be  too  abnormal  for  safety,  and 
in  any  case  unless  it  was  carried  off 
into  "physiological  isolation"  in  a  few 
generations  inter-marriage  would  have 
called  it  back  and  reduced  the  organism 
to  the  average  level  of  the  species. 

But  now  there  was  a  new  method  of 
passing  on  a  step  in  progress.  Instead 
of  sowing   the   gain   on   the   wind   of 


216  ^be  JEvolutlon  of  ^an. 

heredity,  it  Mas  fastened  on  the  wings 
of  words.  Before  the  savage's  son  was 
ten  years  old  he  knew  all  that  his  father 
knew.  The  ways  of  the  game,  the 
habits  of  birds  and  fish,  the  traps  and 
snares — all  these  would  be  explained. 
The  physical  environment,  the  changes 
of  season,  the  location  of  hostile  tribes, 
the  strategies  of  war,  all  the  details  and 
interests  of  savage  life  would  receive 
expression.  And  before  the  boy  was  in 
his  teens  he  was  equipped  for  the  Strug- 
gle for  Life  as  his  forefathers  had  never 
been  even  in  old  age.  This  at  least 
was  time  saved.  The  sou  started  to 
evolve  where  his  father  left  off.     Try 


^be  Evolution  of  Xanguage.       217 

to  realize  what  it  would  be  for  each  of 
lis  to  begin  life  afresh,  to  be  able  to 
learn  nothing  by  the  experiences  of 
others,  to  live  in  a  dumb  and  illiterate 
world,  not  knowing  enough  even  to 
recognize  the  advantage  of  pantomime, 
and  we  can  see  what  chance  the  animal 
had  of  making  pronounced  progress 
until  the  acquisition  of  speech.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  speech,  if  men- 
tal evolution  is  to  come  to  anything  or 
is  to  be  worth  anything,  is  a  necessary 
condition. 

The  evolution  of  Language  is  one  of 
the  easiest  studies  in  development. 
Before   Homo  sapiens  was   evolved,   he 


218    •       X^be  Evolution  of  /Ran. 

was  necessarily  preceded  for  a  longer 
or  shorter  period  by  Ho7no  alalus^  the 
not-speaking  man.  If  Evolution  is  the 
method  of  Creation,  the  faculty  of 
speech  was  no  sudden  gift ;  man's 
mind  was  not  the  cylinder  of  a  phono- 
graph to  which  ready-made  words  were 
spoken  and  stored  up  for  future  use  ; 
Man  had  to  make  his  words,  and  be- 
ginning with  dumb  signs  and  inarticu- 
late cries  to  build  up  a  body  of  language 
word  by  v/ord  as  the  body  was  built  up 
cell  by  cell. 

The  only  condition  of  understanding 
the  process  is,  that  we  take  it  up  as  a 
study  from  the  life,  that  we  place  our- 


XLbc  Evolution  of  Xanfluagc.        219 

selves  in  the  primeval  forest  with  early 
man,  in  touch  with  the  actual  scenes  in 
which  he  lived,  and  that  we  note  the 
real  experiences  and  necessities  of  such 
a  lot. 

One  of  early  man's  first  discoveries 
was  the  power  of  numbers.  Instead  of 
prowling  about  the  beast-infested  forest 
alone,  he  came  to  form  part  of  a 
family  or  tribe  or  clan,  and  had  thus 
the  advantage  in  the  struggle  for  life 
which  the  gregarious  state  affords  to  all 
creatures  that  have  hit  upon  this  idea. 
What  is  that  advantage?  Partly  the 
mere  animal  strength  of  the  combina- 
tion,  but  partly  also,  and  much  more 


220  XLbc  Bvolution  ot  /liban. 

important,  its  mental  strength.  Every 
man  in  the  tribe  now  shares  the  power 
of  observation  of  every  other  man  ;  he 
has  as  many  eyes  as  the  tribe,  as  many 
ears,  his  nervous  system  extends 
throughout  the  whole  space  the  tribe 
covers — provided  one  thing  be  added  : 
some  power  of  conversation.  Here  is  a 
herd  of  deer,  scattered,  as  they  love  to 
be,  in  a  string  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long. 
If  these  deer  by  signs  of  head  or  foot, 
or  neck,  or  ear,  by  any  motion  or  by 
any  sound,  can  pass  on  the  news  that 
^ou  are  about,  each  deer  has  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  of  nerves,  several  hundred 
eyes  and  as  many  ears  and  noses.    Num- 


Zbe  JEvolutlon  of  ILanGuagc.        221 

bers  are  strength,  but  only  when 
strength  is  coupled  with  communica- 
tion by  signs. 

Whenever  we  find  animals  living  in 
close  association  with  one  another,  some 
system  of  communication  prevails 
among  them.  The  mere  fact  that  they 
are  together  proves  that  they  communi- 
cate. Among  the  ants,  perhaps  the 
most  social  of  the  lower  animals,  this 
power  is  so  perfect  that  they  are  not 
merely  endowed  with  a  few  general 
signs,  but  seem  able  to  communicate 
upon  matters  of  detail.  Sweeping  across 
country  in  great  armies  they  keep  up 
communication   throughout   the  whole 


222  ^be  JEPolutlon  ot  iHban. 

Hue,  aud  succeed  in  conveying  to  one 
another  information  as  to  the  easiest 
route,  the  presence  of  enemies  or  ob- 
stacles, the  discovery  of  food  supplies, 
and  even  of  the  numbers  required  on 
emergencies  to  leave  the  main  band  for 
any  special  service. 

Everybody  has  observed  ants  stop 
when  they  meet  one  another  and  ex- 
change a  rapid  greeting  by  means  of 
their  waving  antennae,  and  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  it  is  through  these  per- 
plexing organs  that  definite  intercourse 
between  one  creature  and  another  first 
entered  the  world.  The  exact  nature 
of   the    antenna-language    is    not    yet 


Zbc  Evolution  of  l-anfluafle.       233 

fathomed,  but  the  perfection  to  which 
it  is  carried  proves  that  the  idea  of 
language  generally  has  existed  in  nature 
from  the  earliest  time.  Amonof  hio-lier 
animals  various  outward  expressions  of 
emotions  are  made.  The  howl  of  the 
dog,  the  neigh  of  the  horse,  the  bleat 
of  the  lamb,  the  stamp  of  the  goat,  and 
other  signs  are  all  readily  understood 
by  other  animals.  One  monkey  utters 
at  least  six  different  sounds  to  express 
its  feelings  ;  and  Mr.  Darwin  has  de- 
tected four  or  five  modulations  in  the 
bark  of  the  dog. 

Now  these  signs  are  as  much  language 
as  spoken  words.     Any  method  of  com- 


224  tTbe  Bvolutlon  ot  /IBan. 

munication  is  language,  and  to  under- 
stand language  we  must  first  fix  in  our 
minds  the  idea  that  it  has  no  necessary- 
connection  with  actual  words.  In  the 
simple  instances  just  given  there  are 
illustrations  of  at  least  three  kinds  of 
language.  When  a  deer  throws  up  its 
head  suddenly,  all  the  other  deer  throw 
up  their  heads.  That  is  a  sign.  It 
means  "listen."  If  the  first  deer  sees 
the  object  which  has  called  its  attention 
to  be  suspicious,  it  utters  a  low  note. 
That  is  a  word.  It  means  "caution." 
If  next  it  sees  the  object  to  be  not  only 
suspicious  but  dangerous,  it  makes  a 
further    use    of    languafre — intonation. 


Zbe  JEvolution  of  Xanouaoe.       235 

Instead  of  the  low  note,  "listen,"  it 
utters  a  sharp,  loud  cry  that  means  "  run 
for  your  life."  Hence  these  three  kinds 
of  language — a  sign,  a  note,  an  intona- 
tion. The  first  of  these  was  the  first 
human  language.  It  is  still  largely 
used  by  savage  tribes.  The  Red  In- 
dians can  communicate  with  other 
tribes  without  the  use  of  more  than  a 
few  grunts. 

From  the  gesture-language  to  mix- 
tures of  signs  and  sounds,  and  finally  to 
the  specialization  of  sound,  is  a  neces- 
sary transition.  A  sign  language  is  no 
use  when  one  savage  is  at  one  end  of  a 
wood   and  his  wife  at  the   other.     He 


326  Zbc  Evolution  of  ^an. 

must  now  roar  ;  and  to  make  liis  roar 
explicit,  he  must  have  a  vocabulary  of 
roars  and  of  all  shades  of  roars.  In  the 
darkness  of  night  also  his  signs  are  out 
of  count,  and  he  must  now  whisper  and 
have  a  vocabulary  of  whispers. 

Everything  around  him  that  conveyed 
any  impression  of  sound  would  have 
associated  with  it  some  self-expressive 
word  which  both  could  understand  ;  the 
sighing  of  the  wind,  the  flowing  of  the 
stream,  the  beat  of  the  surf,  the  call  of 
the  bird,  and  so  on. 

Once  the  idea  had  dawned  of  ex- 
pressing meaning  by  sounds  the  forma- 
tion  of   words   is  a  mere   detail.     We 


XLbc  Bvoliitton  of  Xanguaoe.       227 

have  probably  all  invented  words.  Al- 
most every  family  of  children  invents 
words  of  its  own.  Cases  are  known 
where  quite  considerable  languages 
have  been  manufactured  in  the  nursery. 
The  construction  of  the  mouth  and 
lips  has  had  something  to  do  with  dif- 
ferences in  languages  and  even  with  the 
possibility  of  language.  You  must  have 
your  trumpet  before  you  can  get  the 
sound  of  a  trumpet.  One  reason  why 
many  animals  have  no  speech  is  simply 
that  they  have  not  the  mechanism  which 
by  any  possibility  could  produce  it. 
They  might  have  a  language,  but  noth- 
ing at  all  like  human  languag-e.     It  is 


228  ZTbc  Evolution  ot  /Ilian. 

one  of  the  significant  notes  in  Evolution 
that  man,  almost  alone  among  verte- 
brates, has  a  material  body  so  far  de- 
veloped as  to  make  it  an  available  in- 
strument for  speech,  and  there  was 
almost  certainly  a  time  when  this  was 
to  him  a  physical  impossibility. 

Articulate  speech  became  possible  to 
man  only  when  the  alveolar  arch  and 
palatine  area  became  shortened  and 
widened,  and  when  his  tongue  became 
shorter  and  more  horizontally  flattened. 
Even  for  differences  in  dialect  there  is  a 
physical  basis.  With  the  macrodont 
alveolar  arch  and  the  corresponding 
modified  tongue,  sibilation  is  difficult, 


TLbe  JEvolution  of  Xanguaoc.       221) 

and  the  sibilaut  sounds  are  almost  un- 
known in  many  dialects.  From  speech 
the  next  transition  was  to  writing, 
which  passed  through  the  same  stages 
— signs,  words,  accents.  Then  came 
the  telegraph  and  the  telephone.  Theo- 
retically, the  next  stage  in  Evolution  is 
telepathy. 


Zbc  jEvolution  of  Scy. 


Hbc  Involution  of  Sey. 

A  WHOLLY  new  chapter  in  the  Evolu- 
tion of  man  has  now  to  be  opened. 
Up  to  this  time  we  have  found  a  body 
for  Man,  and  the  rudiments  of  Mind. 
But  man  is  not  a  body,  nor  a  mind. 
In  these  man  cannot  even  live.  The 
temple  still  awaits  its  final  tenant,  the 
soul.  With  a  body  alone,  man  is  an 
animal ;  the  highest  animal,  yet  a  pure 
animal,  struggling  for  its  own  narrow 
life,  living  for  its  small  and  sordid  ends. 

(235) 


236  ^be  jevolutfon  of  /iiban. 

Add  a  Mind  to  that,  and  you  get  an  in- 
finite advance. 

The  struggle  for  Life  assumes  the 
high  shape  of  a  struggle  for  light ;  he 
who  was  once  a  savage  pursuing  the 
arts  of  the  chase  becomes  what  Aris- 
totle defines  man  to  be — "a  hunter  after 
Truth;"  the  animal  thirst  is  trans- 
formed into  a  thirst  for  learning.  Yet 
this  is  not  the  end.  No  man  lives  upon 
light,  no  human  thirst  is  satisfied  with 
truth  or  learning.  These  are  parts  of 
man's  life,  but  not  his  true  life.  Man's 
true  life  is  neither  lived  in  the  material 
tracts  of  the  body,  nor  in  the  chilly  re- 
gions of  the  intellect,  but  in  the  warm 


Zbe  ^Evolution  ot  Sej.  237 

world  of  the  affections.  Till  lie  is 
equipped  with  these,  man  is  not  human. 
Equipped  with  these,  he  is  more  thau 
human.  He  reaches  his  full  height 
only  when  these  become  to  him  the 
breath  of  life,  the  energy  of  his  will,  the 
summit  of  his  desire. 

As  the  story  of  Evolution  is  often 
told,  Love  has  no  place.  The  chief 
emphasis  of  science  falls  upon  the  op- 
posite— the  animal  struggle  for  life. 
Hunger  was  seen  by  the  early  natural- 
ists to  be  the  first  and  most  imperious 
appetite  of  all  living  things,  and  the 
course  of  nature  was  interpreted  in 
terms  of  a   ceaseless   struggle.      Since 


238  Zbe  lEvolution  of  /nban. 

there  are  vastly  more  creatures  born 
than  can  ever  survive,  since  for  every 
morsel  of  food  provided  a  hundred 
claimants  appear,  life  to  an  animal  is 
described  to  us  as  one  long  tragedy,  and 
Nature  as  a  blood-red  fang.  But  the 
struggle  for  food  is  not  the  only  fuuction 
of  living  things.  '  Creation  is  a  drama, 
and  no  drama  was  ever  put  upon  the 
stage  with  only  one  actor. 

There  are  iwo  functions,  two  main 
functions,  discharged  by  all  living 
things — Nutrition  and  Reproduction. 
The  first  aims  at  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual, the  second  at  the  life  of  the 
species.     The  first  is  self- regarding,  the 


ITbe  Evolution  of  Sej.  239 

second  is  otlier-reg-ardino:.  All  that  is 
greatest  in  the  world  has  come  along 
the  line  of  this  second  function. 

Love  is  not  an  after-thought  with 
Creation.  It  is  not  a  novelty  of  a 
romantic  civilization.  It  is  not  a  mere 
pious  word  of  religion.  Its  roots  began 
to  grow  with  the  first  cell  of  life  which 
budded  on  the  earth.  How  great  it  is, 
how  old  it  is,  how  bound  up  with  the 
very  constitution  of  the  world,  science 
is  only  now  beginning  to  appreciate. 

The  first  chapter  in  the  Evolution  of 
Love  was  the  Evolution  of  Sex.  Not 
that  love  was  an  outcome  of  the  sex- 


240  ^be  Brolution  of  /llban. 

relation,  but  the  creation  of  sex  was  in- 
directly necessary  to  it. 

The  grand  work  of  evolution  in  re-v 
gard  to  sex  is  the  position  that  sex  dis- 
tinctions are  differentiations  from  early 
individuals  who  combined  the  functions 
of  sex  in  one  example.  In  botany  the 
plants  yet  present  examples  where  the 
diflferentiation  has  not  taken  place. 
The  bearing  of  this  proposition  on  the 
evolution  of  society  is  that  the  male 
and  female  are  equal  divisions  from  a 
parent  stem,  and  that  no  inequality  of 
abilities  or  rights  exists  in  this  division 
by  nature.  It  is  a  partition  of  varied 
functions,  but  one  nature  lies  under  all. 


Zbc  Bvolution  of  Scj.  241 

In    social    evolution    tlie     sexes     may 

therefore   expect  to   see  an   increasing 

reciprocity,  and  yet  more  applied  skill 

in  the  divided  labors  of  a  world  where 

every   special   gift    is     intensified    and 

strengthened   by  the  multiplication  of 

demands  for  its  use. 
i6 


^be  ]6volution  of  a  fIDotbcr, 


Zbc  levolution  ot  a  fIDotbcr. 

The  Evolution  of  a  mother — which 
means  the  evolution  of  sympathy,  care, 
and  love — was  one  of  the  most  stupen- 
dous tasks  ever  undertaken  by  nature. 
It  involved  a  complete  reversal  of  the 
older  order,  and  required  the  bringing 
about  of  at  least  four  fundamental 
changes. 

In  the  first  place  the  number  of  young 
produced  at  a  birth  had  to  be  slowly 
reduced  from  millions  to  one. '  The  fe- 

(247) 


248  Cbe  Bvolutton  ot  Hbnn. 

cuiidity  in  the  lower  stages  of  plant  and 
animal  life  was  prodigions.  Crj'pto- 
grams  produced  countless  millions  of 
spores,  and  even  creatures  so  high  as 
the  fishes  spawned  with  scarcely  less 
fertility.  The  reason  of  this  is  that 
these  forms  were  otherwise  defenceless, 
and  had  to  be  created  in  vast  numbers 
to  prevent  extinction. 

Maternal  care  in  these  cases  was  out 
of  the  question — no  mother  could  love  a 
million — so  that  before  this  could  be- 
come possible  the  numbers  had  to  be 
reduced  to  hundreds,  as  among  the  rep- 
tiles, or  to  a  score,  as  in  some  birds,  and 
so  gradually  to  one  or  two,  as  among  the 


^be  :6v>olution  of  a  /Dbotbcr.        249 

higher  mammals.  Till  this  change  was 
effected  there  was  no  maternal  care  in 
the  world.  There  was  great  solicitude 
among  insects  and  others  for  the  egg^ 
but  that  was  a  different  thing  from  care 
of  i\\G.  young.  A  second  change  was  in 
the  form  in  which  the  young  appeared 
when  born.  In  lower  nature  the  young 
have  no  resemblance  whatever  to  their 
parents  ;  but  the  likeness  becomes  more 
marked  as  we  ascend.  The  young  were 
gradually  delayed  in  birth,  so  that  by- 
and-by  they  only  appeared  when  they 
were  recognizable.  A  third  change  was 
to   compel    them    to   remain    by   their 


250  ^be  Evolution  of  /Bban. 

parent's  side  long  euougli  to  make  tlie 
mother  care  for  them. 

There  were  no  children  in  lower 
nature  ;  there  were  only  ofF-spring, 
springers-oflf,  the  young  forsaking  the 
parent  at  the  moment  of  birth,  and  set- 
ting up  an  independent  life  from  the 
first.  But  with  the  phj^siological  ar- 
rangements which  culminated  in  the 
Mammalia,  the  young  were  forced  to 
remain  with  their  mothers  for  months 
or  years.  The  mother  also — and  this 
was  the  fourth  change — was  compelled 
by  the  phj^siological  necessities  of  lacta- 
tion to  remain  in  company  with  her 
young,  and  thus  the  physical  basis  of 


^be  Bvolutton  of  a  /llbotber.  351 
the  family  was  laid.  Theu  followed  the 
ethical  stages.  With  the  lengthening 
of  infancy  in  the  human  subject — a  pro- 
cess required  for  the  due  fitting  up  of 
the  complex  mental  apparatus,  and 
needed  by  no  other  animal — time  was 
given  for  care  to  ripen  into  sympathy, 
and  sympathy  into  love. 

The  entire  basis  of  the  social  and 
moral  life  is  physical,  and  all  these 
preparations  in  nature  had  an  ethical 
end.  It  is  a  fact  to  which  too  little 
significance  has  been  given  that  the 
whole  work  of  organic  nature  culmi- 
nates in  the  making  of  Mothers — that 
the  animal    series    end   with   a   group 


253  ^be  Bvolutton  of  /aban. 

which  even  the  naturalist  has  been 
forced  to  call  the  Mammalia.  When 
the  savage  mother  awoke  to  her  first 
tenderness,  a  new  creative  hand  was  at 
work  in  the  world. 


TTbc  BItcmus  Xlbrarg. 

A  choice  collection  of  Standard  and  Popular  books, 
handsomely  printed  on  fine  paper,  from  large  clear  type, 
and  bound  in  handy  volume  size  in  faultless  styles  : 

1.  Sesame    and    Lilies.     Three   lectures.     By   John 

Ruskin. 

I.  Of  King's  Treasuries. 
II.  Of  Queen's  Gardens. 
III.  Of  the  Mystery  of  Life. 

2.  The  Pleasures   of    Life.     By  Sir  John   Lubbock, 

M.  P.,  F.  R.  S.,  D.  C.  L.,  LL.  D.       Complete 
in  one  volume. 

3.  The  Essays  of  Lord  Francis  Bacon,  with  Memoirs 

and  Notes. 

4.  Thoughts  of  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius  Anto- 

ninus.    Translated  by  George  Long. 

5.  A  Selection  from  the  Discourses  of  Epictetus  with 

the  Encheridion.     Translated  by  George  Long. 

6.  Essays,  First  Series.     By  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

7.  Essays,  Second  Series.     By  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

8.  Cranford.     By  Mrs.  Gaskell. 

9.  Of  the    Imitation  of  Christ.       Four  books  com- 

plete in  one  volume.     By  Thomas  A  Kempis. 

10.  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield.     By  Oliver  Goldsmith. 

11.  Letters,  Sentences  and  Maxims.     By  Lord  Ches- 

terfield.    "  Masterpieces    of   good    taste,  good 
writing,  and  good  sense." 

12.  The  Idle  Thoughts  of  an  Idle  Fellow.     By  Jerome 

K.  Jerome.     A  book  for  an  Idle  Holiday. 

13.  Tales  from  Shakespeare.     By  Charles  and  Mary 

Lamb,  with    an   introduction   by   Rev.   Alfred 
Ainger,  M.  A. 

(253) 


^be  Bltcmus  OLIbrarB. 

14.  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World.     By  Henry 

Drummond,  F.  R.  S.  E.,  F.  G.  S.  The  rela- 
tions of  Science  and  Religion  clearly  expounded. 

15.  Addresses.     By  Henry  Drummond,  F.  R.  S.  E., 

F.  G.  S.  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World ; 
PaxVobiscum;  The  Changed  Life;  How  to 
Learn  How;  Dealing  with  Doubt;  Prepara- 
tion for  Learning ;  What  is  a  Christian  ?  1  he 
Study  of  the  Bible;  A  Talk  on  Books. 

16.  "  My  Point  of  View."     Representative  selections 

from  the  works  of  Professor  Drummond.  By 
William  Shepard. 

17.  The  Scarlet  Letter.     By  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

18.  Representative  Men.     Seven  lectures.     By  Ralph 

Waldo  Emerson. 

19.  My  King  and  His  Service.     By  Frances  Ridley 

Havergal.  Containing — My  King;  Royal 
Commandments;  Royal  Bounty;  Royal  Invi- 
tation ;  Loyal  Responses. 

20.  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.     By  Ik  Marvel.     A  Book 

of  the  Heart. 

21.  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.     By  Nathaniel 

Hawthorne. 

22.  Dream    Life.     By    Ik    Marvel.      A   Companion 

volume  to  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor. 

23.  Rah  and    His  Friends,  Marjorie  Fleming,  etc. 

By  John  Brown. 

24.  Essays  of  Elia.     By  Charles  Lamb. 

25.  Sartor  Resartus.     By  Thomas  Carlyle. 

26.  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship.     By  Thomas  Carlyle. 

(254) 


Zbc  Bltcmus  ILibracB. 

27.  Ethics  of  the  Dust.     By  John  Ruskin. 

28.  A  Window  in  Thrums.     By  J.  M.  Barrie, 

29.  Mosses    from    an    Old    Manse.       By   Nathaniel 

Hawthorne. 

30.  Twice-Told  Tales.     By  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

Cloth,  various  handsome  designs  stamped  in  gold  and 
silver, 75  cents. 

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HENRY  ALTEMUS,  Publisher,  Philadelphia. 


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